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Out-of-Doors Club 

SAMUEL SCOVILLET Jr. 





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FOUR OF THE BAND 


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BY 

SAMUEL SCOVILLE, Jr. 


PHILADELPHIA 

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY 



Copyright, 1919, by 
Samuel Scoville, Jb. 



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For Mother and Trottie and Honey and 
Henny-Penny and Alice-Palace and the dear 
Third who waits Beyond for the rest of the 
Band, this little Book of their Deeds and 
Darings is written 

— by— 

The Captain 


DEC 31) 1 9 i 9 


©CI.A561206 


FOREWORD 

This is the story of five children and a 
father and a mother who found their way into 
a new world. The way is open to all children 
and to all fathers and mothers, and good friends 
and happy adventures await them there. 

Samuel Scoville, Jr. 


Philadelphia. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Free Lunch 9 

The Seven Sleepers 17 

The Day of the Winter Turtle 23 

The Storming of Fort Hill 31 

The Fen Folk 37 

The Fox Family 47 

The Lost Land 55 

The Birdlers 63 

The Owl Call 71 

The Best Nest 81 

The Queen Flower 91 

Pond-lily Path 97 

Sheep-pen Hill 109 

The Plains 115 

The Hunting of the Swift 121 

The Argonauts 131 

Turtle Day 141 

The Tree Treasure Hunt 149 

Blindie the Mole 157 

A Christmas Angel 165 


6 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

From Photographs by and Courtesy of 

Mr. William L. Baily, Mr. J. Fletcher Street, 
Dr. A. H. MacPherson, Mr. Julian K. Potter, 

J. C. Winston Company, F. H. Revell Company. 

The Nest of the White-throated Sparrow. . .Cover 


Four of the Band Frontispiece 1 ' 

FACING PAGE 

Mirror Pool 9 

A Coon Tree 17 

The Speedway 23* 

The Sparrow-hawk on his Watch-tower 31 

A Wilderness Fire 37^ 

Father Fox 47*"" 

The Pine-snake Sentry 55 

A Red- winged Blackbird’s Nest 63 w 

The Watcher 71 

The Littlest Nest of All 8 T 

The Queen Flower 91 

The Turk’s Cap Lily 97 

Purple-pink Butterflies 109^ 

The Barrens 115^" 

The Che wink’s Nest 12K 

The Dragon 131^ 

The King of the Forest 136- 

Mrs. Snapper Laying Sixty-six Eggs 141 u 

The Red-eyed Vireo’s Nest 149' 

Three Blindies 157 

Mr. Flicker 165 1 


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MIRROR POOL 




FREE LUNCH 


The Out-of-Doors Club, known as the Band 
for short, was a secret organization which 
specialized in desperate out-of-door adven- 
tures. It was led by the Captain, who in 
private life was known as Fathy. The other 
officers were the Third, Trottie, Honey, Henny- 
Penny, and Alice-Palace. There were no pri- 
vates. Then there was Mother, the Quarter- 
master-General, Minnie and Annie in charge 
of the Commissary, and old John the gardener, 
the head of the Engineer Corps. 

To-day when the Band had met for its 
weekly walk the lunch had been entrusted to 
Honey. There was a long, dry, spicy saveloy 
sausage wrapped in tissue-paper, a cluster of 
raisins, three thick scones apiece, and a little 
package of cocoa, which could be brewed in the 
tin cup which the Captain carried in a pocket of 
his khaki shooting-jacket. All of these neces- 
sary and appetizing articles had been wrapped 
in a tight little bundle and left on the hall- 
table by long-suffering Minnie, the cook, the 
night before. 

There had been an early breakfast and a five- 
9 


10 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


mile tramp to the frozen depths of Blacksnake 
Swamp. This great marsh, which was so 
treacherous and impassable in summer, was to- 
day frozen hard and safe, and bottomless Mirror 
Pool looked like black glass. They explored 
all of its secret places. Just as they suspected, 
the Band found that the long-billed marsh- wren 
nested among the cattails which grew in the 
very heart of the swamp, guarded in summer by 
a stretch of quivering, impassable mud. There 
were the nests, made of the stalks of cattails 
bent down and thatched on the outside with 
grass, like big brown balls. Inside, they were 
lined with soft, velvety down from the heads 
of the cattails. 

There were five nests, but the Captain said 
that probably they were all the work of one 
pair of birds. After the nest is built the father 
marsh-wren has a funny habit of building a lot 
of other nests while the mother-wren is sitting. 
Perhaps he does this to keep himself in practise 
for another year, or perhaps he thinks that he 
can fool any one coming to rob the nest by hav- 
ing a lot of false nests around the real one. At 
any rate, there are usually four or five nests to 
each marsh-wren family. 

Over beyond the cattails was a wide grassy 
stretch, covered smooth with white snow. 
There the Band did some trailing and tracking. 


FREE LUNCH 


11 


They found innumerable rabbit-tracks, two 
holes wide apart and two holes close together; 
and the Captain said the rabbit was going in 
the direction of the wide-apart marks. He ex- 
plained that every time Bunny jumped his 
long hind legs came out in front, and made 
the far-apart marks, while the two little fore 
legs made the other marks which were close 
together. 

Everywhere, too, there was a tracery of fine, 
delicate little paw-prints with the marks of 
long tails. These were made by the meadow- 
mice, which tunnel under the snow, and are 
just as active in winter as in summer. 

Among them was a strange track, almost like 
the trail of a snake; only, of course, all the 
snakes were fast asleep far underground. It 
was a wide trough, with little, close-set, zigzag 
paw-marks all through it. The Captain told 
the Band that this was the trail of the fierce 
blarina shrew, one of the greatest killers known. 

“If the blarina were as large as a dog,” said 
the Captain, “we should not be safe anywhere, 
for every one of them eats twice its own weight 
in flesh every twenty-four hours. Under 
ground, above ground, or under the water it 
kills and kills and kills. It has to,” went on the 
Captain, “for it starves to death in six hours if 
it can’t get flesh.” 


12 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


The Band regarded the strange tracks with 
enormous interest. 

“How big do they grow?” anxiously inquired 
Henny-Penny, the littlest but one of the Band. 

“Just about as long as my middle finger,” the 
Captain reassured him. 

Suddenly in the midst of all of these snow- 
stories the Band began to get hungry. 

“Lunchtime!” they all shouted together. 

Then it was that the guilty Honey remem- 
bered for the first time that the lunch was lying 
on the hall-table instead of bulging out of his 
pocket. There was great wrath among the 
other members of the Band when he faltered 
out the sad truth. 

“Five miles from home, and our whole day 
spoiled,” wailed Trottie, always the hungriest 
of them all. Even Henny-Penny, usually 
Honey’s firmest ally, regarded him reproach- 
fully, while Alice-Palace, the littlest of the Band, 
lifted up her voice several feet in an exhibition 
of grief that bade fair to scare away even the 
bloodthirsty blarinas for miles around. Only 
quick action on the part of the Captain saved 
the day. 

“Comrades,” said he, placing one hand over 
Alice-Palace’ s widely opened mouth, “all is not 
lost. Woodsmen like ourselves can find food 
anywhere. Follow me. Hist!” 


FREE LUNCH 


13 


Like Hawk-Eye and Chingachguch and other 
well-known scouts, the Captain always em- 
ployed that mysterious word when beginning a 
desperate adventure. The Band followed him 
to the other side of the great swamp. They 
crossed a brook, and found themselves in a little 
grove of swamp-maples which had grown 
around the fallen trunk of the parent tree. The 
Captain scanned the snow carefully. Every- 
where were trails which, like rabbit-tracks, by 
their position showed that they had been made 
by some animal which hopped. Instead of the 
holes made by the rabbits there were little paw- 
marks, and the Captain told the Band that 
these were the tracks of gray squirrels, which 
had come down through the woods into the 
marsh. 

“Cheer up, comrades,” he said, looking care- 
fully among the trees; “I see something.” 

Even as he spoke, he reached up; and there, 
wedged in between a little twig and the smooth 
trunk of a swamp-maple sapling, was a big, dry, 
seasoned black walnut. Then the Band began 
to look, and they found the leafless trees filled 
with walnuts, each one wedged so that it would 
not blow down. 

Up and about the low trees climbed and 
scrambled the Band. It was great fun. Some- 
times the nuts were hidden and sometimes in 


14 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


plain sight, but all together there was nearly 
half a peck of them, seasoned until the rich 
gold kernel was dry and crisp. They had come 
upon the winter storehouse of a gray-squirrel 
family. The red squirrel, as the Captain ex- 
plained to them, hides his nuts in heaps in hol- 
low trees or under rocks, but the gray squirrel 
tucks his away separately one by one. When 
at last the nuts had been collected, they were 
all piled together in the lee of a big black oak- 
tree where the camp-fire was to be made. 
When this was done, the Band were anxious to 
qualify as expert nut-crackers, but the Captain 
would not let them begin. 

“We’ve got to get our dessert before we start 
lunch,” he said, leading them back into the 
swamp. 

Beside a broken-down rail fence he stopped, 
before a thicket of tiny trees with smooth 
trunks, whose gray twigs were loaded down with 
bunches of what looked like little purple plums. 
Each one had a layer of dried blue sweet pulp 
over a flat stone; and the pulp, what there was 
of it, was as sweet as sugar, with a curious spicy 
taste. The Captain told them that these were 
nannie-plums, belonging to the viburnum 
family. 

Farther on they found clusters of little purple 
fox-grapes, fiercely sour in the fall, but under 


FREE LUNCH 


15 


the bite of the frost they had sweetened enough 
to be swallowed. 

Still the Captain was not ready to sit down. 
Up the hillside he led them, by a winding path 
through tangled thickets, until in a level place 
beside a little brook he brought them to a group 
of curious trees. The bark of these was deeply 
grooved and in places nearly three inches thick. 
The stiff branches were covered with scores of 
golden-red globes. Some were wrinkled and 
frost-bitten until they had turned brown, but 
others still hung plump and bright in the 
winter air. It was a persimmon grove which 
the Captain had discovered. 

Before he could be stopped Henny-Penny 
had picked one of the best-looking of the lot, 
and took a deep bite of the soft, luscious fruit. 
Immediately thereafter he spat out his first 
taste of persimmon with great emphasis, his 
mouth so puckered that it was with difficulty 
that he could express his entirely unfavorable 
opinion of the new fruit. 

“Handsome is as handsome does,” warned the 
Captain. “Try some of the frost-bitten ones.” 

Accordingly the Band selected the worst- 
looking specimens they could find on the trees, 
and found that the more wrinkled the per- 
simmon, the sweeter the taste and the less the 
pucker. 


16 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


On the way back the Captain suddenly 
stopped. In front of him grew several small 
trees whose branches were all matted together 
here and there in tangled bunches which looked 
like birds’ nests. At the end of the twigs grew 
single round purple berries about the size of a 
wild cherry. Alice-Palace said this must be 
the bird’s-nest tree, but the Captain told them 
that these were young hackberry-trees. They 
picked handfuls of these berries, which had a 
sweet, spicy pulp over a fragile stone that could 
be crushed like the seeds of a raisin. In fact, 
the berry very much resembled the raisin in 
taste. 

The camp once reached, there followed a feast 
which the Band never forgot. Around a roar- 
ing fire of dry hickory and sassafras branches 
they sat with their backs against the great oak- 
tree, and cracked and cracked and cracked 
nuts, which tasted far better than any tame 
ones which could be bought at grocery-stores. 
Along with the nuts they crunched sugar-ber- 
ries, and nibbled nannie-plums, and tasted 
frost-grapes, while for dessert each one had a 
handful of the honey-sweet wrinkled persim- 
mons. “It was lucky for Honey, though,” 
said Trottie, “that the Captain was along. If 
we hadn’t found this lunch, we’d have left him 
tied to a tree for the blarinas to eat up.” 










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A COON TREE 



THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 


“Safe from sorrow and sin and death,” read 
Mother as she finished the legend of the Saints 
at Ephesus, “the Seven sleep sweet in that cave 
until Christ cometh again.” 

The Band was spending two winter days and 
nights at the Cabin. 

“I wisht, I wisht,” said Alice-Palace at last, 
“that I could see the nice dear Sleepers.” 

“Well,” said the Captain from the depths 
of a monstrous rocking-chair, “there are seven 
other sleepers who live not far from this Cabin, 
but they aren’t saints by any means. Some are 
gentle and some are fierce.” 

“Tell us,” chorused the Band from in front 
of the fire that roared in the great arched fire- 
place. 

“The first one,” said the Captain, “is big and 
black and dangerous.” 

“Bumbly-bee!” shouted Alice-Palace. 
“That’s big an’ black an’ very dangerous,” she 
explained, “cause once I caught one an’ he 
hurt me norful.” 

“No,” said the Captain, “this is a big, black, 
growly animal who wears an overcoat of four 
inches of fur and an under-coat of four inches of 
17 


18 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


fat. He isn’t afraid of the cold, but he finds 
that rent is cheaper than board. So he sleeps 
all winter instead of eating.” 

“Bear,” shouted all but one of the Band. 

“Bumbly-bee,” piped Alice-Palace, who was 
never known to change an opinion. 

“Once,” said the Captain, “I knew two boys 
— one was twelve and the other was ten years 
old. They went off hunting up in Maine in 
March. One had a muzzle-loading shotgun 
and the other had a long stick. They found a 
little hole in a bank,” he went on, “and the boy 
with the stick poked. He felt something soft, 
so he kept on poking. ‘I think there’s some- 
thing here,’ he said. There was. All of a 
sudden the whole bank caved in and out rushed 
a big, black, cross bear. You see,” explained 
the Captain, “they had poked right into the 
air-hole of a bear-den. The snow was so deep 
that they couldn’t run, and the bear could 
climb a tree much faster than they could. So 
what do you suppose they did?” 

“I guess,” remarked Alice resentfully, “that 
they wisht it had been a bumbly-bee.” 

“Go on!” shouted the rest with one accord. 

“The little chap with the stick,” continued 
the Captain, “got behind the big one with the 
gun, who was shaking like anything. ‘Don’t 
you miss,’ he said, ‘ ’cause this stick isn’t very 


THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 


19 


sharp.’ ‘All right,’ said the big boy, and he 
waited until he saw the white spot that showed 
under the bear’s chin when it reared up on its 
hind legs not six feet away. The shot crashed 
right through the bear’s throat, and he fell dead 
so close to their feet that the hot blood stained 
the shoes of the boy in front. They got ten 
dollars for the skin, and ten dollars bounty, and 
about three million dollars of glory.” 

“Tell some more,” chorused the Band when 
he stopped for breath. 

“Well,” meditated the Captain, “there was 
my great, great Uncle Jake who fought in the 
Revolution and was a famous bear-hunter. 
One day during a January thaw he was coming 
down Pond Hill when he stepped into a mushy 
place back of a patch of bushes and sank in up 
to his waist. He felt something soft under his 
feet, and he stamped on it. The next second,” 
said the Captain impressively, “he wished he 
hadn’t, for a big animal rose right up under him, 
and the next thing poor Uncle Jake knew he was 
astride a bear going down hill like mad, riding 
bear-back as it were.” 

Mother gave a deep groan and buried her 
face in her hands; but the rest of the Band were 
too young to be affected by the pun. 

“He didn’t want to stay on, and he didn’t 
dare to get off,” resumed the Captain hurriedly, 


20 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“so he drew his hunting knife and waited until 
the old bear reached level ground and just 
stabbed him dead right through his neck.” 

“Tell us about some more,” urged Trottie 
when the Captain stopped again. 

“Some of the gently ones,” suggested Henny- 
Penny, beginning to look around anxiously at 
the dark corners. 

“Well,” said the Captain, “there’s a gray, 
greedy one who goes to bed early, just a loose 
bag of fat. That’s the woodchuck. Then 
there’s a nice striped one with pockets in his 
cheeks, who always takes a quart or so of nuts 
and seeds to bed with him in case he gets hungry 
in the night. That’s the chipmunk.” 

“Nice dear Chippy Nipmunk,” explained 
Alice-Palace to the Third. 

“Then comes a chap with a funny face and a 
ringed tail and whose hindpaws make a track 
like a baby’s foot. That’s the raccoon. The 
next one is pretty dangerous,” continued the 
Captain. “He is black and white and has a 
long bushy tail. He won’t turn out of his way 
for anybody, but he’ll always give any one that 
comes up to him three signals before he defends 
himself. First,” said the Captain, “he’ll stamp 
his forefeet. Second, he’ll raise his long bushy 
tail. If you still keep on coming he gives his 
third and last signal. He waves the end of his 


THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 


21 


tail back and forth. If you stand still,” finished 
the Captain impressively, “or move backward, 
you are safe even then, but if you take one step 
forward — you’ll have to buy a new suit of 
clothes.” 

“I know,” remarked the Third wisely, 
“Bill Darby and I caught one in a trap once. 
He said it was an albino woodchuck. But it 
was a skunk — an’ we had to live in our bathing 
suits for nearly a week. 

“The next sleeper,” said the Captain, “has 
wings.” 

“A bumbly-bee,” tried Alice again. 

“No,” returned the Captain patiently, “this 
is an animal with a very ugly face and leathery 
brown wings with hooks on the top. When it 
goes to sleep for the winter it catches these little 
hooks on a rafter or beam in some dark corner 
of a building or steeple. Then it turns and 
hangs by the long curved nails of its hind feet 
and goes to sleep upside down. It makes a very 
high squeak when it flies, and sometimes it 
comes into houses hunting mosquitoes. It 
never does any harm, and it does a great deal 
of good; but silly people,” went on the Captain 
severely, looking straight at Trottie, “some- 
times kill them with tennis rackets.” 

“I won’t kill any more bats,” murmured 
Trottie penitently. 


22 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“Last of all,” resumed the Captain, “is the 
dear little jumping-mouse. He has big eyes 
and floppy ears and a long, long tail. If you 
boys could jump as far in proportion to your 
height as Mr. Jumping-Mouse does, you would 
clear two hundred and forty feet every time you 
jumped. Before the frost comes he makes a 
round warm nest of leaves and soft grass, far 
underground. There he rolls himself into a 
round ball and sleeps until spring.” 

“I like the cuddly jumpy-mouse the best,” 
said Alice-Palace sleepily. 

Then Mother announced that it was bedtime 
for seven other sleepers. 

“Just one minute,” said the Captain. “I 
want to read the Band a very, very beautiful 
poem which has the names of the seven animals 
that sleep all winter, so that the Band can re- 
member them. I know it’s a beautiful poem,” 
he finished modestly, “because I wrote it my- 
self. 

“Here is the poem: 

“The Bat and the Bear they never care 
What winter winds may blow, 

The Jumping-Mouse in his cosy house 
Is safe from ice and snow. 

The Chipmunk and the Woodchuck, 

The Skunk who’s slow but sure. 

The ringed Raccoon, who hates the moon, 

Have found for cold the cure.” 












SPEEDWAY 





THE DAY OF THE WINTER TURTLE 


“All out for the Cranberry Country,” 
shouted the Captain up the staircase. It was 
so early on a Saturday morning that the winter 
sky was just beginning to redden in the east. 
Then he whistled the red-bird note, the adven- 
ture-call of the Band. Followed the instan- 
taneous thump of Trottie’s bare feet on the 
floor, an answering whistle from Henny-Penny 
that sounded like a small steam-siren, a squeal 
from Alice-Palace’s room, a shout from the 
Third, and last a long yawn from the unhurry- 
ing Honey. The Band was aroused. 

“Skates and sweaters,” were the marching 
orders. There was the sound of hasty splash- 
ings and brushings and scrubbings from the 
upper bathrooms. Twenty minutes later the 
Band was met around the breakfast-table. 

“Don’t you go to the office to-day, FathyP” 
inquired the thoughtful Third. He was nick- 
named the Third because he had the same name 
as the Captain and the Captain’s father, whom 
they all called Pater. 

“When the bogs are frozen, 

And the weather’s fine, 

No indoor work 
For me or mine!” 

23 


24 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


loudly declaimed the Captain with wonderful 
gestures, like Trottie speaking a piece on a 
Friday afternoon. 

“I made up that beautiful poem,” he an- 
nounced when the Band had stopped laughing. 
“Moreover, that’s the law, and I wouldn’t dare 
break it.” 

“I guess you made up that law, too,” said 
Mother, who was always pretending to scold 
the Captain because he left his law-office so 
often to take trips with the Band. 

“Well, it’s a good law, anyway,” returned the 
Captain, taking a long breath. “All those in 
favor of it make a loud noise.” 

If there had sounded one more vote in the 
affirmative, the windows would undoubtedly 
have been blown out. As it was, Minnie the 
cook came rushing in with a dipper of water, 
under the impression that her favorite fear of a 
fire had at last come to pass; and Mother said, 
when she took her hands off her ears, that she 
was deaf for life. The Captain, however, who 
had made the loudest noise of all, announced 
that the Holiday Bill was carried by a very close 
vote. 

Two hours later found the whole Band in a 
new country. Underfoot was snowy sand. 
Overhead were low pines whose stiff needles 
came in clusters of threes, and cedars with 


THE DAY OF THE WINTER TURTLE 25 

rounded instead of pointed leaves. The Cap- 
tain told them that the pines were the pitch- 
pines instead of the white-pines to which they 
were accustomed, and that the cedars were 
white instead of red cedars. Then there were 
thickets of little oak trees not more than three 
feet high, with three-cornered leaves with a 
little thorn at each corner, and others with 
ridged bark and leaves that looked like chest- 
nut leaves. The first of these, he said, were 
the scrub-oak, and every tree in spite of its 
size was a full-grown tree, perhaps many years 
old; while the other was the chestnut-leaved 
oak. 

Another tree the Third, who was a boy scout, 
said was a black-oak. He told by cutting a 
piece out of the bark with his bowie-knife (it 
was really a jack-knife, but the Third always 
spoke of it as a bowie) . The inner bark showed 
bright yellow, and the Third said that was the 
sign of a black-oak. Alice-Palace said it ought 
to have been black, and that for her part 
she intended to call the tree the yellow-oak. 
There was quite an argument until the Captain 
said that the Third was right, and showed them 
also a white-oak which had a whitish-gray bark. 
Then beside a brook they found a plant that 
looked like a vine climbing up a bush. Its 
leaves were of a fresh green, untouched by the 


26 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


frost, and grew on a stiff, brittle stem that 
looked as if it were fine-drawn copper wire. 
The leaves themselves were like flat green 
hands, each with three, four, or five fingers 
and a thumb. They were beautifully marked 
with a pattern of fine lines, and both the 
texture and the color were different on the 
under side. 

The Captain told them that the plant was the 
rare climbing-fern, which like the Christmas 
fern keeps green all winter. 

Finally the Bog was reached, a sheet of ice 
like black glass. Around it ran dykes, which 
when crossed showed a chain of other bogs that 
stretched for miles through the woods. It was 
wonderful skating. In and out among the trees 
they went, following ditches through mile-long 
marshes, circling ringing little pools that 
gleamed like mirrors made of green jade, and 
gliding cautiously over treacherous places 
where the warm, yellow-green sphagnum moss 
had made the ice soft. 

After a while they all cut hockey sticks, and 
the Captain taught them how to make perfect 
ones by bending down saplings and building a 
fire underneath the bent part, which straight- 
way thereafter stayed bent. Then they played 
“keep-away” with an old doorknob for a puck, 
which, providentially, was found in Henny- 


THE DAY OF THE WINTER TURTLE 27 


Penny’s pocket, along with about four pounds 
of other bric-a-brac. Then came hill-dill and 
cross-tag. 

But, after all, the best fun was the Speedway 
Fast Freight. The Captain would start first, 
and behind him all the Band would be strung 
out holding on to each other’s hockey sticks in a 
line. The train would whiz down the long level 
ditches, whirl squealingly around sharp comers 
and in and out among the bushes and trees, los- 
ing a car now and then when the turns were too 
sharp or the speed too great. 

It was by one of these accidents that Alice- 
Palace made a great scientific discovery. She 
had been the little caboose, which is always 
found at the end of all well-regulated freight 
trains. When the fast train zipped in and out 
among some patches of dangleberry bushes at 
the far end of the marsh, the coupling broke, or 
the brakes locked, or there was a hot-box, or 
some other railroad calamity occurred. At any 
rate the wheels of the little caboose left the 
tracks, and she overturned with a startling 
bump as the train disappeared around the 
corner. 

There was a piercing shriek of distress, and 
the Fast Freight came to a standstill and was 
hastily organized into a wrecking train which 
back-tracked its way to the accident. As they 


28 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


came within sight of the wreck they noted that 
the little caboose lay prostrate, face downward, 
on the clear ice. The Captain shot away from 
the rest of the Band as if they were anchored — 
for under the martial sternness necessary to con- 
trol the desperate characters who followed his 
fortunes, the Captain concealed a certain 
amount of affection for the youngest of the 
Band. 

“What’s the matter, Alice?” he called anx- 
iously as she still lay face downward even when 
he reached her. 

“Turties,” responded Alice muffledly, with 
her mouth close to the ice. 

“What?” questioned the Captain bewilder- 
edly. 

“Turties, nice crawly turties, two of ’em,” 
repeated Alice, pointing a mittened forefinger 
downward. 

Sure enough, before the delighted eyes of the 
whole Band there they were! Two turtles 
about the size of the Captain’s hand were mov- 
ing with quick strokes under the clear ice here 
and there, in plain sight through little thickets 
of golden-green water-weed. It was a delight 
to watch the swift, effortless way in which they 
moved, so different from the painstaking prog- 
ress of a turtle on land. At each alternate 
stroke the little legs, armed with long curved 


THE DAY OF THE WINTER TURTLE 29 


claws, would float loose without any resistance 
to the water until in position again for another 
stroke. 

“Just as if they were swimming the ‘crawl,’ ” 
said the Third. 

“They are,” said the Captain, “they in- 
vented it.” 

The backs of both swimmers were olive- 
black in color. Around the edge of the upper 
shell was a loud pattern of yellow-bordered ver- 
milion shields and bars and crescents, while 
their heads were striped with bright yellow, and 
their necks with yellow and red. 

“They look all painted,” remarked Henny- 
Penny, nearly freezing his little nose against the 
ice. 

“That’s their name, ‘Painted Turtle,’ ” 
said the Captain, “only they’re really terrapin, 
and they belong to the same family as the dia- 
mond-backed terrapin, which is worth its weight 
in silver.” 

“Terrapin,” he explained, “are fresh-water 
turtles which are good to eat.” 

For a long time the Band watched them swim 
around. Not a look did the turtles give to their 
audience, even when they rapped hard on the 
ice above them. 

“I always thought until to-day,” soliloquized 
the Captain, “and all the books say, that turtles 


30 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


hibernate in winter under the mud like water- 
snakes and frogs.” 

It was Henny-Penny who put an end to this 
research work. 

“It’s lunch-time by my tummy.” 

“Mine too,” shouted the rest of the Band. 

“Your tummies are fast,” objected the Cap- 
tain, “it’s only half-past eleven.” 

His watch, however, was unanimously over- 
ruled by the more accurate timekeepers, and 
in a few moments the whole Band was on the 
bank of one of the bogs. A long dry log made 
a good seat. In front was a dead stump. 
Against this the fire was built so that its hollow 
side would reflect the heat. My, how good 
everything did taste! Never were there such 
chops and such delicious strips of bacon as the 
Captain drew out of one of the pockets of his 
shooting-jacket, all wrapped up in tissue paper. 
These the Band roasted on long sharp sticks. 
And when he drew out packages of cluster- 
raisins, and handfuls of nuts, which the Band 
cracked lingeringly on the log with round 
pebbles, the lunch became a feast. 

The winter sun was westering well down the 
sky when the Band finally started back, and the 
stars were out when they reached home, and 
Mother, and — supper. 






THE SPARROW HAWK ON HIS WATCH-TOWER 


THE STORMING OF FORT HILL 


It was snowing hard, and the Rand stared 
sadly out of the windows. They had planned 
to celebrate Washington’s Birthday by skat- 
ing. Now the skating was spoiled and, worst 
of all, the Captain had not come home from 
the office, as he had hoped to do. It looked like 
a wasted holiday. Suddenly from the white 
swirl sounded the call of the cardinal grosbeak. 

“It’s the Captain,” shouted Trottie and the 
Third. 

“It’s Fathy,” squealed Honey and Henny- 
Penny and Alice-Palace. 

Sure enough, in another minute the Captain 
came stamping in, covered with snow. 

“Comrades,” he said impressively, winding a 
bandanna around his neck, “we attack Fort 
Hill at sunset. If there be any here who for 
the sake of their wives and families wish to 
draw back, now is the time.” 

“ I haven’t got any wife,” piped up Henny- 
Penny, “nor any family ’cept this one. But 
I want to come.” 

The rest of the Band followed his lead. Not 
one of them drew back. The Captain said it 
31 


32 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


made the blood run faster in his shriveled old 
veins to have such gallant comrades. 

“To horse,” he shouted a minute later, 
grabbing a six-foot sled and shooting off across 
the icy lawn. The rest of the Band followed 
him whoopingly on sleds of all sizes and col- 
ors. Down the slope they sped into the wind- 
ing driveway, and followed its turns until they 
shot one after another out of the stone gate 
and stopped in the sunken lane which ran past 
Wentworth Farm. As they plodded through 
the stinging snow, a bird dived into a patch of 
bushes directly ahead. 

“A cardinal,” said Trottie, the bird expert, 
“I saw the color.” 

The rest of the Band doubted, but a few 
steps farther on and they all saw his blood-red 
crest against the white and green of a snow- 
covered cedar and heard his loud whistle. 
Farther on a little gray and black bird flitted 
along the roadside, which even Alice-Palace 
recognized by the flash of its snowy white 
tail-feathers. 

“It’s a bunco,” she called out loudly. 

“Junco, you mean,” said her twin, Henny- 
Penny, and there followed an argument which 
lasted until they reached old Tory Bridge. 
One of Washington’s scouts had once hidden 
under it when pursued by a Tory troop, grip- 


THE STORMING OF FORT HILL 


33 


ping his horse’s muzzle firmly lest it should 
neigh as the enemy’s horsemen thundered 
above him. Beyond the bridge a flock of 
purple-black birds flew up with creaking calls 
from the neighboring meadow, circled once 
among the snowflakes, and disappeared over 
the next hill. 

“Purple grackles,” shouted Trottie and the 
Third. 

“Purply crackles,” piped up Alice-Palace 
after the rest, — “cause they make a crackling 
noise,” she explained. 

“It’s a record,” said Trottie. “We got them 
on March first last year.” And down went the 
crackling grackles on the year’s bird-list. 

At the very crest of the hill the Captain 
halted the Band. To the left a long meadow 
sloped away to the valley below, almost lost to 
sight in the snow flurries. Without a word 
the Captain climbed the ice-covered rail fence, 
dragging his long sled behind him, followed by 
the Band. 

“Beyond that oak-tree down the meadow 
is Fort Hill,” he said. “No one has ever 
tried coasting down it. Comrades Henry and 
Alice are to stop at the tree, and Trottie and 
Honey are not to do any racing. Follow me,” 
he finished, “and don’t fall off.” 

The sleds sped through the frozen grass and 


34 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


ice-covered weeds, which snapped and broke 
and tinkled like glass. Gradually the pace be- 
came swifter. Just beyond the oak-tree the 
Captain, who was leading, disappeared over 
the edge of what seemed to his startled eyes a 
precipice. Then he struck a pile of snow-cov- 
ered cornstalks and sailed out into the air. 
He clung to his spirited steed with a death- 
grip and struck ground again some ten yards 
further on with a grunt. 

By this time his sled, although ordinarily 
well-broken, was excited beyond control. It 
shot down the icy hill with a crash that sounded 
like a bullet going through a dozen window- 
panes. The sharp fragments from the ice-cov- 
ered grass cut into the Captain’s face like hail. 
In an instant with one last flying leap his sled 
was speeding like a bullet across the flat 
toward a stone wall. It was impossible to 
turn the bolting sled on the ice without skid- 
ding. Suddenly, just as the wall loomed up 
dead ahead, the sled struck a stretch of drifted 
snow, and the Captain made a sharp curve and 
came to a stop just in time to watch the rest 
of the Band take the hill. 

First came the Third. He leaped over the 
edge like a startled chamois, with a loud 
squeal when he saw what was in front of him. 
The pile of cornstalks he missed by a hair’s- 


THE STORMING OF FORT HILL 


35 


breadth. Gaining control of his sled far more 
quickly than his leader had done, he went 
whizzing safely by, kicking his legs insultingly 
in the air as he passed. 

Then came Trottie and Honey, disobedi- 
ently racing as usual. They had been running 
into each other and jockeying for position all 
the way down the meadow. All bickerings 
stopped at the edge of the precipice. 

“Gee!” they both howled in terror as they 
shot out into the atmosphere. Honey fol- 
lowed the Third’s safe track. Trottie, how- 
ever, struck the cornstalk pile full and fair. 
He seemed to Honey to soar into the air like 
a swallow, and then went whizzing down the 
descent. As he saw the stone wall in front he 
gave a terrified yell, but just then he struck 
the saving stretch of soft snow, and amid a 
spindrift of frozen flakes whirled gaspingly to 
where the Captain’s craft lay at anchor. 

Then two little round heads peered over the 
edge of the slope. They belonged to Alice- 
Palace and Henny-Penny, who had obediently 
stopped at the oak-tree. 

“There’s a littly weeny bird up here,” Alice 
shrieked down to them. Through the flakes 
flew a tiny bird. 

“See-see-see,” it called in a tiny, high- 
pitched note. 


36 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“Golden-crowned kinglet!” shouted Trottie 
exultingly, and so it was. 

Slowly they climbed the long slope down 
which they had flashed a few minutes before. 
As they reached the top of the hill, suddenly 
the sky all around them grew pink, the snow- 
flakes stopped falling, and in the west gleamed 
a heart of glowing, shifting flame. The sky to 
each side brightened into pale gold. The sil- 
ver bars of the ice-covered branches could not 
keep back the glory that streamed from the 
sunset. The caw of a passing crow came down 
from the cold sky and against the after-glow 
they saw a sparrow hawk perched on his 
watch tower. 

Up the slope the Captain dragged the two 
littlest members of the Band. Then they all 
got on their sleds and pretended that it was 
three hundred years ago, when wolves were 
everywhere. As they sped down the road, 
they could almost hear the pattering of swift 
feet and see galloping forms black against the 
snow. Down the last hill they rushed and 
whizzed in at the home gate. Across the 
lawn shone the yellow lamplight of home. 
Five minutes later the whole Band rushed in 
the door and all together told Mother of the 
day’s doings. 


































































i jt *■ 




































































WILDERNESS FIRE 




THE FEN FOLK 


The Band was abroad again, and this time 
in a far country. Only the Captain knew the 
paths and the dwellers in this lone marsh-land. 
First they crossed a great river where from the 
ferry-boat they saw their first herring-gulls. 
The snow-white ones with black tips to their 
wings, the Captain said, were the grown-ups, 
while the smoky-gray and black-drab birds 
were the little-ups. On the New Jersey side 
they followed a winding road through the woods, 
and on the way they learned many new ever- 
greens. One was a tree with red berries and 
stiff, bright-green thorny leaves. 

“I don’t know the name of it,” said Trottie, 
pricking his nose severely, trying to smell the 
berries, “but they are the same leaves that 
Mother buys for Christmas greens every year.” 

“Quite right,” said the Captain, “it’s holly, 
and if we could make it grow over on our side of 
the river she wouldn’t have to buy any more.” 

Then he showed them the little fatal sheep- 
laurel with its green, drooping leaves, which kill 
sheep when they nibble them in winter; dark- 
green glossy leaves of the mountain laurel, whose 
dead branches make wonderful firewood; and 
37 


38 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


the wider, smooth, drooping green leaves of the 
wild sweet magnolia, whose gray bark is spicy 
like the spice-bush or the sassafras, yet with a 
gingery bite of its own. Then there were the 
climbing fern, and the wintergreen leaves which 
the Band ate by handfuls, to say nothing of 
white cedars, and pitch-pines with their needles 
in clusters of threes, and the yellow pines whose 
needles were usually arranged in twos. The 
last of the evergreens was a bush with olive- 
green leaves and tiny, bitter, black berries. It 
was the ink-berry, a poor relation of the Christ- 
mas holly, for in spite of its duller leaves and 
murky berries it is a holly too. 

Near the ink-berry was another shrub, with 
flat, frost-bitten, greenish-brown leaves and 
curious wrinkled waxy white berries growing 
directly from the stem. The Captain picked 
a few of the leaves, crushed them in his hand, 
and thrust them under the Third’s straight little 
nose. 

“Smells like a barber-shop,” remarked the 
latter, and the children all took turns in sniffing 
the sweet, spicy perfume of the bruised leaves. 

“It’s the bayberry,” explained the Captain; 
and he told them how his grandmother used to 
melt the outside waxy flakes of the berries and 
make wonderful bayberry wax candles, and how 
one would perfume the little bedroom up under 


THE FEN FOLK 


39 


the eaves in which he slept when he went to 
visit her. The Band picked bunches to take 
home to Mother, but the Captain said he didn’t 
believe she knew how to make candles. 

The air was like iced wine with the perfume 
of the pines, and in spite of the cold the Band 
had never seen such a deep blue sky, even in 
midsummer. On a crooked stream, steeped 
amber-brown and sweet by millions of cedar- 
roots, stood the Cabin. Inside, the Captain 
lighted a roaring fire of scrub-oak sticks and 
black-oak logs, and they all sat around and 
toasted their toes while he brewed a great flagon 
of mulled ale. It smelled a good deal like 
cocoa, and the flagon looked like a brown 
pitcher that had once stood in Mother’s china- 
closet; but that other gay and gallant Band that 
had hunted the dun deer in Merry England in 
the brave days of old had been partial to mulled 
ale, and what was good enough for Robin Hood 
was good enough for any one — so argued the 
Band. 

On the way to Indiola Bog, where cran- 
berries were raised on hundreds of acres of 
lonely, flooded woodland, a tiny bird darted in 
and out along the roadside like a mouse. It 
was only in sight a moment, but that was 
enough for Honey, the Sharp Eyes of the Band. 

“It’s a little tiny wren,” he shouted, “I can 


40 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


see his long curved beak and his funny, perty 
tail” 

“A winter-wren,” chanted Trottie the orni- 
thologist, who spent all his spare time in poring 
over bird-books, “the fourth smallest bird in the 
Eastern States, found along brooksides, a win- 
ter resident,” he quoted. A winter-wren it was, 
and all the Band at once noted it down on their 
yearly bird-sheets, on which was kept a list of 
birds seen during the year. Alice-Palace had 
to print the name, and she spelled it “wintur 
ren” in spite of Henny-Penny’s protest. 

“If ‘r-e-n’ doesn’t spell ‘wren,’ what does it 
spell?” said Alice-Palace. 

For two miles the Band wound its way along 
a delightfully concealed path, which began at a 
little door back of Sam Carpenter’s saw-mill, 
and crept through the middle of thickets, along 
the edge of little lakes and across rushing brooks 
on single logs, but so hidden that strangers 
would never have found it. For the owners of 
cranberry-bogs set in the middle of the woods 
were not anxious to have the way to the same at 
all well known. The Captain, however, knew 
all the secret paths. He could go to Gum 
Sprung, where the pitcher-plants grew, and 
knew the way to Ong’s Hat, where the hat of 
that murdered chief had been found a century 
ago. He could follow the maze of wood-roads 


THE FEN FOLK 


41 


to Mount Misery. Double-Trouble, Apple-Pie 
Hill, Friendship, and all the other little settle- 
ments hidden away in the heart of the great 
pine-barrens. 

By the time Indiola Bog had been reached 
the Band was ready for lunch, and immediately 
scattered to bring in firewood. 

“No sticks with bark on,” warned the Cap- 
tain, “it makes a smoke which may betray us to 
the lurking bloodthirsty Mingoes. Moreover, 
it’s hard on the eyes.” 

In a surprisingly short time all of the Band 
were back. Each one had been well drilled in 
his part of the fire-making. 

Alice-Palace had brought a double-handful 
of the dryest brown leaves she could find. 

Henny-Penny picked up nothing except 
brittle little twigs and stems of dead dry blue- 
berry bushes, which bum furiously and with 
intense heat. 

Honey and Trottie brought in armfuls of 
dead scrub-oak trees, which make a clear hot 
fire, and sassafras saplings, which bum with a 
scented flame. 

The Third and the Captain staggered in 
bearing pine-stumps which looked like prodig- 
ious double-teeth with long, resinous roots. 
These had been grubbed up when the bog was 
made, and burned with a dull-red, intense glow. 


42 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


When the wood was all heaped up high to one 
side the Captain knelt down, and around Alice- 
Palace’s ball of dry leaves built a little tepee of 
tiny blueberry twigs. Then came the blue- 
berry bushes, and a pile of scrub-oak held down 
by anchors of pine-stumps. 

Alice-Palace, as the littlest of the Band, was 
allowed to light the fire. In a moment a stream 
of smokeless flame shot up, and a few minutes 
later there was a roaring pillar of fire five feet 
high. 

Then came wassail and feastings galore. 
Each of the Band broiled a chop cunningly 
fastened to the end of a long, five-foot oaken 
broiler. And there were scones and rusks and 
cookies. The loving-cup — it was of the folding 
variety — was passed from hand to hand, filled 
high with more mulled ale of the cocoa-brand 
brewed by the Captain in a little aluminum 
skillet that he produced from the mysterious 
depths of his khaki shooting-jacket. 

It was after all this revelry, when the pale sun 
was well down the sky, that the tragedy of the 
day occurred. 

The Band had been exploring on their skates 
new bogs of the seemingly endless chain that 
stretched away through the woods. The last 
one was shut in by trees, and seemed deeper and 
with more springs beneath its surface, which 


THE FEN FOLK 


43 


made the smooth ice bend and crack ominously 
at times. Yet it was the most beautiful of all. 
Where grass-stems had touched the ice, dainty 
flowers of hoar-frost made wonderful patterns 
as if etched in rippled glass. Here and there 
were sheets of ice of a deep gleaming blue like 
that dread “paved work of a sapphire stone” 
about which the Band had read last Sunday. 

It was Honey, the adventurer, who discov- 
ered a new speedway, a long ditch at the far 
end of the bog, shadowed by sweet-gum trees, 
stretching between banks of aronia or choke- 
berries, both red and black, which were carpeted 
with the wine-red pyxie and the trailing cran- 
berry vine with their leaves of crimson-lake, and 
here and there a scarlet berry overlooked by the 
pickers. Down the glimmering stretch he sped 
in spite of the Captain’s warning shout. Sud- 
denly just ahead gleamed a stretch of clear 
water where a spring bubbled up. The ice 
was so transparent that Honey never glimpsed 
the difference until close to the edge. He tried 
desperately to stop; but one of his skates chose 
that moment of all others to come off, and poor 
Honey fell flat on the cracking ice which, just 
as the Captain reached him, broke with a snap. 

Honey went up to his shoulders in the icy 
water, but grasping the Captain’s long hockey- 
stick was pulled out on the ice in a second. 


44 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Immediately the water began to freeze, until 
Honey’s clothes clanked as he walked. The 
Captain pulled off his skates, poured the water 
out of his dripping shoes, and gave the long 
wailing owl-call, the Band’s signal of distress. 
They hurried up from different parts of the bog 
to find Honey trying hard to smile a wan watery 
smile, a difficult performance over chattering 
teeth. 

The Captain laced up the wet shoes again, 
wrapped his dry sweater around Honey’s shiv- 
ering shoulders, and, holding his wet hand in 
his, loped off for the cabin two long miles away, 
leaving the Third to convoy Henny-Penny and 
Alice-Palace, while Trottie raced back and forth 
between the van and the rear. 

“P-o-o-r Honey,” pitied Alice-Palace, “was 
he trying to catch a turtie?” 

“He hasn’t cried a bit,” reported Trottie to 
Henny-Penny, whose sensitive nature fre- 
quently took refuge in tears. Henny-Penny 
was much impressed. 

“Not even a littly bit?” he inquired anx- 
iously. “Didn’t he make a whimpy noise?” 

“I didn’t cry neither,” boasted Alice-Palace, 
“when I failed down. I was going to,” she 
confessed, “but then I sawed some nice dear 
turties under the ice and I forgot to.” 

It was a long, cold two miles for Honey, even 


THE FEN FOLK 


45 


though cheered by condolences and conversa- 
tion from the rear-guard; but the Cabin was 
sighted at last. It did not take the Captain a 
minute to start a roaring fire in the ten-foot fire- 
place. Honey’s wet things were peeled off in a 
jiffy, and he was rubbed down with a big 
scratchy towel until he turned pink all over. 
Then, swathed in a fuzzy warm bathrobe, he 
sleepily watched his steaming clothes dry while 
the Captain brewed another pot of cocoa. 

Two hours later the Band were home, and 
horrifying Mother with tales of tumbles, 
turtles, camp-fires, rescues, and other harrow- 
ing adventures by field and flood. 

“You’re all so little,” she complained, hug- 
ging as many of them as she could reach, “it’s 
too dangerous.” 

“No-o-o, Muwy, we love it!” said Henny- 
Penny and Alice-Palace together. 

“Not with the Captain along,” asserted Trot- 
tie, holding tight to one of his hands, while 
Honey and the Third divided the other. 

Mother gave the Captain a long look — quite 
a nice look it was. 

“Well, perhaps not,” she admitted at last. 















’ 













































FATHER FOX 







THE FOX FAMILY 


It all began with a loose tooth. Said tooth 
was the property of Alice-Palace, and when it 
became very wobbly indeed she allowed Mother 
to take it out and never even made a cry-face. 
Thereafter the tooth was placed under her pil- 
low and by the next morning had changed 
into a bright, shiny dime as is the way with 
the lost loose teeth of good, brave children. 
Then came the important and vital question as 
to what should be the investment of this fund. 
It was Henny-Penny, her twin, who first 
aroused Alice-Palace to the necessity of prompt 
action. 

“S’pose,” he began ominously, “that a big 
old, bad old burglar should come some night 
an’ climb up to our window?” 

“S’pose he should,” agreed Alice-Palace, her 
eyes getting bigger and bigger. 

“An s’pose he should open the window and 
come creepy, creepy along the floor right to 
i your crib?” 

“S’pose he did,” agreed Alice-Palace very 
I faintly. 


47 


48 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“An’ s’pose,” continued the inspired Henny, 
“that he’d grab you in the dark and yell, 
‘Gimme that dime!’ ” 

This climax was too much for Alice-Palace 
and she raised her voice several feet on high 
and rushed down the stairs to Mother, fol- 
lowed by the over-wrought Henny-Penny who 
had firmly convinced himself that the above- 
mentioned burglar was actually in one of the 
dark corners of the nursery. It was some time 
before the tumult and the shouting died down 
sufficiently for Mother to find out what it was 
all about. The very next day Alice-Palace de- 
cided not to take any further chances in 
keeping so large a sum of money in the house. 
Henny-Penny generously offered to allow her 
to deposit it in his dime savings bank, which 
was guaranteed to open on the dropping in of 
fifty dimes. As he was still forty-seven short 
of the opening coin the prospect did not ap- 
peal to his twin. Honey suggested ten sticks 
of candy, to be nobly divided among the dif- 
ferent members of the Band. Trottie rather 
leaned toward an ice-cream cone, which could 
be distributed by alternate licks among her 
comrades-at-arms. The important question 
was finally put up to the Captain. 

“Buy a tree,” he advised without an instant’s 
hesitation. “Next to bringing up a nice girl 


THE FOX FAMILY 


49 


or a boy,” he explained, “there is nothing that 
is better than to plant a tree and watch it 
growing bigger and better every year. There 
are lots of places,” he confided, “where I have 
planted trees and I never go by any of them 
without stopping to look at my tree and see 
how it is getting along. Only the other day,” 
he went on, “I was near a little house in the 
city, with a brick-paved backyard about as 
big as a pocket handkerchief. Mother and I 
lived there once before the Band began. One 
day I took up four bricks and planted a tulip 
tree. Yesterday I stopped there and my tree 
had grown higher than the house and made 
that little, stuffy, hot backyard all cool and 
green.” 

Accordingly, that very afternoon the whole 
Band started for a nursery some three miles 
away, over by Darby Creek, where a dime 
would buy a good pin-oak seedling. The be- 
ginning of twilight found them marching in 
single file through Fox Valley, Alice-Palace 
holding her precious tree clasped tightly in 
both hands. They had stopped at a tiny dark 
pool on the edge of Blacksnake Swamp, where 
the Captain showed them a vast pin-oak tree 
seventy-five feet tall and so large around that 
the whole Band, except the Captain, could 
hardly encircle it with their joined hands. 


50 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


The Captain told Alice-Palace that was about 
the way her pin-oak would look to her great, 
great grandchildren. 

It was a gray, cold afternoon as they fol- 
lowed a winding trail through the beech-woods 
that crossed the brook and then wound its 
way along a little wooded valley. The Band 
were marching without a sound, for the Captain 
had taught them that it is bad manners to 
make any noise in the woods. The wild-folk, 
he said, did not like noise, and the woods be- 
long to them. Suddenly the Captain, who 
was walking a little ahead, turned and held up 
his hand and pointed with the other like a 
semaphore. Down the opposite slope through 
the trees some fifty feet away trotted wearily 
a gaunt old mother-fox. As the Third said 
afterwards, she looked exactly like the pictures 
of the wolf in Red Riding Hood. 

Close behind her padded a round woolly lit- 
tle cub with such a funny little face that it was 
all the children could do to keep from laughing 
every time they looked at him. He was red- 
dish, but with two long stripes of gray down 
his breast and across his round little tummy. 
Another larger cub came from among the 
trees to meet them. He evidently had a bad 
temper, for he snarled at his little brother and 
then suddenly turned and disappeared down 


THE FOX FAMILY 


51 


a deep burrow which the Band noticed for the 
first time had been dug under the roots of a 
great oak tree. On looking closely they could 
see two other burrows in a line with the 
first, one under a rock and the other in the 
slope of a bank. Between the three ran a 
well-trodden path and behind them all lay an 
enormous dead chestnut log. The old mother- 
fox trotted over to the log, lay down on the 
very top with her magnificent brush hanging 
down to one side, dropped her keen, sharp, sly 
face into her paws — and fell asleep. The little 
woolly cub trotted sedately over to the middle 
burrow and lay down on a tiny bank of earth. 
Like human cubs he evidently did not care 
much about taking a nap. First he ate a few 
blades of grass. Then catching sight of a dry 
leaf which stuck upright in his woolly fur, he 
twisted himself around and around, trying to 
catch it with his teeth, and finally rolled over 
and over, with the result that when he stopped 
he had three leaves in his fur instead of one. 

In front of him was the corpse of a bat- 
tered old black crow. He would steal up toward 
this with the utmost caution, without a sound, 
and finally spring through the air and land 
right on top of the unsuspecting crow, which 
he would proceed to worry and shake with 
fierce little growls and yaps, something like 


52 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


those made by a puppy, only much sharper. 
At last he too lay down and curling himself into 
a round ball with his funny little head on his 
paws went fast asleep. The wind was blowing 
from the foxes toward the Band or this never 
would have happened. 

For a long time they all stood stony still, 
looking first at the mother-fox and then at 
the cub. Finally the Captain tiptoed his 
way up the slope. Although he made hardly 
a sound that the Band could hear, yet he 
had not gone three steps before the little 
cub sprang up with wide-open eyes and 
looked straight at him. The Captain stood 
perfectly still, with one foot out in the very act 
of making a step. A wild animal cannot tell 
by sight a man from a tree if only he stands 
still, and in a minute the cub lay down and 
went to sleep. Once more the Captain started, 
and the same thing happened again and again, 
until at last he was scarcely twenty feet 
away from the cub. Suddenly the mother-fox 
was standing right beside the cub. Not one of 
the Band had seen her come. Her keen, fierce, 
sly face peered through the trees trying to find 
what had made the tiny sound which had 
brought her down from the watch-tower. 
Nothing but the eyes of the Band moved, yet 
when they looked back from the cub the old 


THE FOX FAMILY 


53 


mother-fox was gone as silently as she had 
come. 

Once more the little cub laydown and seemed 
to fall fast asleep. This time, however, he 
must have been watching through half-shut 
eyes, for at the very first movement that the 
Captain made he started up again and in a 
very slow and dignified manner, as if he had 
suddenly remembered something, he turned 
and disappeared in the middle burrow. The 
Band hurried up and joined the Captain. 
They found that the big log above the bur- 
rows was worn smooth, showing that Mrs. Fox 
must have used it often. In front of the bur- 
rows were the feathers of flickers, grackles, 
bits of rabbit-fur, and the battered old crow 
aforesaid. The Captain told them that every 
fox warren had a secret entrance which was 
only used to go in or out in great emergencies. 
For a long time the Band looked and looked, 
but could find nothing except the three holes 
in plain sight. Finally Trottie saw a single 
reddish hair clinging to the edge of a hollow 
stump. Looking inside he discovered that a 
hole had been dug down through the decayed 
wood and into the ground beyond, making the 
secret entrance. 

The Captain told them that probably Mrs. 
Fox would move with all her children that 


54 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


very night, for foxes are jealous of letting 
humans know where they live. That was just 
what happened, for never again did the Band 
meet any of the fox-family there. Indeed, the 
last time they visited the place a big fat 
stupid woodchuck was living in one of the 
burrows. 






THE PINE-SNAKE SENTRY 



THE LOST LAND 

They have sought him high , they have sought him low , 
They have sought him over down and lea ; 

They have found him by the milk-white thorn 
That guards the gates o’ Faerie. 

’Twas bent beneath and blue above , 

Their eyes were held that they might not see 

The kine that grazed beneath the knowes, 

Oh, they were the Queens o’ Faerie. 

So read the Captain from the “Rhyme of 
True Thomas” to the Band in the flickering 
firelight. 

“I wish we could find Fairyland!” sighed 
Honey after a while. 

“The way was lost thousands and thousands 
of years ago,” answered the Captain, “and we 
are all so busy and hurried and worried now- 
adays that most of us never find it.” 

“Couldn’t little girls who aren’t hurried or 
worried go there?” inquired Alice-Palace from 
her corner. 

“And nice, good, quite big boys too,” added 
Henny-Penny, her twin, anxiously, from his. 

“Pooh!” said the sophisticated Trot tie, 
“there isn’t any such place.” 

55 


56 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“Well,” meditated the Third, who usually 
understood the Captain better than the rest of 
the Band, “I know what Fathy means. It’s 
where little people like birds and orchids and 
funny old animals live.” 

“Well,” said the Captain, “it’s bedtime now, 
but if you’ll be down to-morrow morning fifteen 
minutes after you hear the Call, we’ll see what 
we can find.” 

At the first robin-song, which always comes 
just when the stars begin to grow dim in the 
east, there sounded the clear whistle of the 
cardinal grosbeak from the Captain’s room, and 
as the sun came up the whole Band were on the 
march. By midmorning they were in a new 
country. The woods looked like a shimmering 
pool of changing greens, lapping over a white 
sandland that had been thrust up from the 
South into the very heart of the North. They 
followed a woodpath to a little cabin nestled 
among the pitch-pines, on the high bank of a 
stream stained brown and steeped sweet with a 
million cedar roots. By the rail a mountain 
laurel raised a ghost-like glory of white, pink- 
flecked flowers. Over the low door hung a 
tiny bog-iron horseshoe dug up in a cran- 
berry bog and undoubtedly cast by some fairy 
steed. 

After a wonderful lunch on the wide, cool 


THE LOST LAND 


57 


porch which overhung the stream the Band 
pushed on through a tangle of tiny trees, the 
leaves of which had a sharp, small thorn at each 
angle, and which the Captain told the Band 
were scrub-oaks, the smallest of their family. 
The Captain pushed aside branches of withe- 
wood, with its flat masses of white bloom and 
star-leaved sweet gum saplings, until finally 
through the underbrush appeared a faint path. 
The woods became very still and no one felt like 
speaking. The path crept in and out through 
the marshes until it came to the very edge of the 
bank of the creek. Suddenly, at the Captain’s 
feet, the Band saw something which made 
them stand and look for a long time without a 
word. Out of the center of a mass of hollow, 
crimson-streaked leaves filled with clear water 
swung two glorious blossoms. Wine-red, aqua- 
marine, pearl-white and pale gold gleamed 
the twin flowers that nodded proudly to 
the children from the ends of long, slender 
stems. 

“It’s the pitcher-plant,” whispered the Cap- 
tain as the Band bent down to look more closely 
at these marsh-dwellers. 

From the stream the hidden path wound 
through thicket after thicket, sweet as spring 
with the fragrance of the wild magnolia and the 
spicery of the gray-green bayberry. Its bed 


58 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


was made of white sea-sand. By its side spread 
the vivid crimson-lake leaves of the wild ipecac, 
with its strange green flowers, and everywhere, 
as if set in snow, gleamed the green-and-gold 
of the barrens-heather. The plants looked like 
tiny cedar trees loaded down with thickly set 
blossoms of pure gold which the wind spilled in 
little yellow drifts on the sand. In the distance 
through the trees came glimpses of far-away 
meadows, hazy purple with blue toad-flax. 
Beside the path showed here and there the pale 
gold of the narrow-leafed sundrops with a center 
of deep orange stamens. Beyond were masses 
of lambskill, with its fatal leaves and crimson 
blossoms. On and on the path led, past jade- 
green pools, in which gleamed buds of the yel- 
low pond-lily like lumps of floating gold. 
Among these were the paler golden-club, which 
looked like the tongue of the calla lily. At 
last the path stretched straight toward a flat- 
topped mound that showed dim and fair 
through the low trees. The Captain halted the 
Band. 

“That may be one of the fairy hills,” he 
whispered. 

“Like the one where the man heard them 
sing inside?” queried Henny-Penny. 

“Yes,” answered the Captain, “just such a 
one. ‘Robin Adair,’ you know, that Mother 


THE LOST LAND 


59 


sometimes sings to you,” he went on, “is a 
fairy song that a shepherd heard and learned at 
twilight coming from inside a fairy hill.” 

The Band closed up close and crept along 
in perfect silence. Just before the mound, 
in a tangle of sand-myrtle with vivid little 
oval green leaves and feathery white, pink- 
centered blossoms stood a bush with a 
pale gray trunk and leaves of bright arsenic- 
green. 

“Be careful,” warned the Captain, pushing 
aside the vivid foliage, “don’t let those leaves 
touch you. They are the fingers of a bad fairy 
and her name is Poison-Sumac.” 

“Aren’t you afraid of her?” asked Trottie, as 
the Band filed around the bush. 

“No,” said the Captain, “I must have had a 
fairy godmother, for Poison-Ivy and Poison- 
Sumac don’t hurt me.” 

As the Captain let the fierce branches fall 
back into place, Henny-Penny pushed on ahead 
along the path. Just as he came to a sharp 
bend where the way turned toward the mound, 
from beyond sounded a fierce, deep hiss and 
poor Henny-Penny scuttled back, his face 
fairly white with terror. 

“There’s an norful big old, bad old snake 
right across the path,” he panted. 

“That’s only another sentry,” the Captain 


60 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


reassured him. “He only hurts those who are 
afraid of him.” 

The Captain strode along the path and bent 
down and raised the great body of a pine-snake 
cream-white and umber-brown and fully six 
feet long. At first the snake raised its strange, 
pointed head with its gold and black eyes and 
hissed fearfully, but when it found that the 
Captain meant no harm it coiled contentedly 
around his arm and accompanied the Band into 
the enchanted circle where the pyxies had car- 
peted the sand with their wine-red and green 
moss starred thick with hundreds of flat five- 
petaled white blossoms. 

“Men have traveled hundreds of miles,” the 
Captain told them, “to see a piece of this pyxie 
moss, which isn’t moss at all, but just a little 
shrub.” 

Near the summit of the mound the path was 
lost in a foam of the blue, lilac and white but- 
terfly-blossoms of the lupine. Little clouds of 
fragrance drifted through the air, as the wind 
swung rows and rows of the transparent bells of 
the leucothoe. Beyond the lupine stood a rank 
of dazzling white turkey-beards. The inmost 
circle of the mound was carpeted with dry gray 
reindeer moss, into which the feet of the Band 
sank deep. Right before them, like crinkled 
globes of jacinth, drooped on slender stems 


THE LOST LAND 


61 


seven rose-red moccasin flowers, one of the 
most beautiful of all the orchids. In the still 
sunlight the Band looked at them long. 

“I guess,” whispered Alice-Palace at last, 
“they must be the Seven Queens of Fairyland. 
If we had only come quicker and quieter we 
would have seen them.” 
















* 

[ I > I ■ 9 W H $ 

■ 






i u . • 


»’* • • • ' r 

v . . 


* 



RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD'S NEST 




THE BIRDLERS 

“Fathy’s a great birdler,” complimented 
Alice-Palace as the Captain explained to the 
Band the difference between the black-and- 
white warbler and the white-breasted nut- 
hatch. Both of them run up and down trees, 
but the “topnotch,” as Alice-Palace insisted on 
calling the nuthatch, had white cheeks and a 
grunting note, while the warbler was streaked 
black and white and sang a little creaking 
song. The Band were at the Cabin in the 
piniest part of the pine-barrens whose snowy 
sand and white pebbles harked back to the 
days when they were the bed of some sea for- 
gotten a hundred thousand years ago. They 
had come over to find certain birds which 
were not seen on their side of the Delaware 
River. The Band took their bird study very 
seriously. Each one of them kept a life-list 
and a year-fist, beside their day-fists, in which 
they set down the name and date of each bird 
met. The one who could tell forty different 
kinds of birds in a single day won a pair of 
field-glasses. Then, too, they all kept notes. 
Even Alice-Palace, who was only six, carried an 
63 


64 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


enormous blank-book about the size of a geog- 
raphy. To date it contained this single note: 
“Robbins eat Wormes. I saw him do it. I 
wouldn’t.” 

They had just finished the largest breakfast 
ever eaten by a military organization. At 
least so said Mother, who had charge of the 
Commissary as well as the Ambulance Corps. 
From over the creek came a sort of squealing 
cry that sounded like escaping steam. A hawk, 
with a barred tail, and white underneath ex- 
cept for the black tips of its underwings, swept 
by overhead. It was the broad-winged hawk, 
which eats snakes and mice and is one of the 
good hawks. In fact the Captain told the 
Band that they are all good, from the red- 
tailed down to the small sparrow-hawk, except 
one — the fatal little sharp-shinned hawk. He 
it was who last winter followed the Captain’s 
gallant company of evening grosbeaks down 
from the frozen North cutting out one a day 
until by April there were only scattered rem- 
nants of the largest flock ever reported. It is 
he who is the destruction that wasteth at 
noonday for so many happy little useful birds. 

The Captain’s bird-lecture at this point was 
cut short by a squeal of distress from Alice- 
Palace. She had slipped away during the talk 
to a near-by thicket from which she returned 


* 


THE BIRDLERS 


65 


on the run, with angry-looking stings on the 
back of both hands. In the middle distance 
a little cloud of yellow striped insects buzzed 
sullenly around a hole by a little tussock. 

“I was taming yellow jackets,” sobbed 
Alice-Palace, “and they bited me.” While 
the Band was comforting Alice with sympathy 
and wet clay, Henny-Penny, her twin, de- 
cided to take prompt action against the un- 
grateful insects. Armed with a water bucket 
he waited near the nest until the last yellow 
jacket had buzzed his way in. Then suddenly 
clapping the pail upside down over the hole 
he sat on it while the yellow jackets fizzed in- 
side like a soda fountain. He had overlooked 
the fact, however, that some of the swarm 
were away from home. In a moment he was 
sharply reminded of their return and tore back 
to the Cabin, joining his laments to those of 
his twin until, as Trottie said, the camp 
sounded like a massacre. 

“Comrades,” said the harassed Captain 
when order had been restored, “let us be on 
our way. Anywhere but here. Nothing can 
be worse than this. Forward march!” 

In single file, amid the snifflings of the 
wounded, the Band moved away, following a 
path which led through brilliant masses of the 
Carolina pink and by clumps of the bird-foot 


66 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


violet, like patches of blue sky which had 
drifted down to earth. On either side were 
thickets of sand myrtle and shad-blow, blue- 
berry and cassandra all in blossom. For some 
distance the path ran beside the rushing waters 
of Stop-the-Jade Stream. The Captain had 
them notice a curious thing. All of the brooks 
in the pine barrens were silent. None of them 
sang and chattered as in the North. This was 
because there were no stones in their beds and 
they ran through deep soft sand. 

Suddenly a little bird with two white wing- 
bars and a blue-gray head spoke from out of 
a pine-tree. “See-see! me-ee! you-you!” he 
sang. It was the solitary or blue-headed vireo 
on his way to the mountains, rarest of his 
family except the almost unknown Philadel- 
phia vireo. Later in the day the Band heard 
the white-eyed vireo. “Whip Tom Kelly! 
Whip Tom Kelly!” he cried explosively from 
the brook-bank. The path wound its way 
deeper and deeper into the dry, sweet woods. 
Here and there were little clumps of wild 
ipecac. Henny-Penny regarded the herb shud- 
deringly. Once when he was young — it must 
have been all of two years before — he had 
found Honey’s paint box one morning un- 
guarded before breakfast. It was a hungry 
time of day and the paints looked tasty. A 


THE BIRDLERS 


67 


few minutes later there was only a nibbled bit 
of crimson-lake left in the whole box. There- 
after Doctor Bellows and a dose of ipecac 
played a prompt part in the adventure, all of 
which accounted for Henny-Penny’s failure to 
appreciate ipecac, either growing or bottled. 

It was at the Upper Dam that the Band met 
the two birds they had especially hoped to 
find. It was Honey who saw the first. Flit- 
ting through the scrub-oaks and gleaming in 
and out among the young leaves was one of 
the most brilliant of all the warblers. Its 
breast was sunshine-yellow, with black streaks 
down the sides, and it had a yellow spot under 
the eye, yellowish wing-bars, and a greenish 
back, and it sang a song made up of thin, 
wiry notes that ran up the scale. This was 
the prairie warbler, a bird that loves scrub- 
oaks and dry thickets and builds a little jewel- 
casket of a nest all lined with soft brown fern 
wool. A few minutes later Trottie heard what 
sounded like a chipping sparrow trilling away 
in the woods and caught sight of the other 
pine-barren bird, the pine warbler. It was a 
larger bird than the prairie, with a greenish 
back, a bright yellow throat and breast, and 
white wing-bars. The Captain told the Band 
that for years and years he had searched for 
the pine warbler’s nest, but had never yet 


68 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


found it. Once in the late afternoon he had 
met Mrs. Pine Warbler with some sticks in 
her mouth, but there was only time to catch 
his train and he had to go without watching 
her. She never gave him another chance. 

The best bird adventure of all came last. 
The Band was coming back to the Cabin tired 
and hot, but with a list of over forty birds, 
when they came to a little clearing near Lower 
Mill. On the ground hopped a bird with a 
reddish brown back and head and a white 
breast heavily spotted with black. It was the 
wood thrush, a rare bird in the Barrens. Near 
him was a smaller, lighter thrush, of a tawny 
brown color and with its breast and throat 
lightly spotted with tawny brown spots. 

“It’s the veery,” said the Captain, “side by 
side with the wood thrush.” 

“There’s another,” whispered Trottie, “on 
the ground just beyond.” As he spoke a still 
smaller thrush, with its head, back and wings 
of an olive-brown, hopped from the ground to 
a low twig and the whole Band could see that 
its tail was of a reddish brown quite different 
from the color of its back. 

“Watch its tail,” said the Captain. Sure 
enough in a minute the bird slowly raised its 
tail until it stuck out at an angle to its back 
like the tail of a wren. 


THE BIRDLERS 


69 


“It’s a hermit-thrush,” said the Captain, 
“though he is passing through late. You can 
always tell him by the reddish tail and his 
funny trick of raising it when he is embar- 
rassed.” In a near-by tree a robin sang and 
the Captain said that he was a thrush too, and 
was sometimes called the migratory-thrush. 
Then from overhead came the sky-call of the 
bluebird, the smallest of all of our thrushes. 
So the Band had been lucky enough to see at 
the same time five of the eight thrushes, only 
the olive-backed, the gray-cheeked, and the 
Bicknell’s thrush being absent. 

The adventure was not over yet. Just as 
the Band was moving off the hermit-thrush 
hopped to a higher branch and began to sing. 
Not once in years does one hear the hermit- 
thrush sing in migration, and the whole Band 
stood still as stones. The song was the whis- 
per-song which the hermit-thrush sings to him- 
self before trying the full-throated song of the 
nesting season. Up and up went the pure- 
fluted notes, the higher ones with just a little 
tremolo at the end. There were no bass notes, 
as in the song of the wood-thrush. Finally, 
when the highest notes sounded, the song 
seemed to stop, but there in front of them was 
the bird still singing, its beak opening and 
shutting and its whole body quivering in an 


70 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


ecstasy. The song had passed beyond the 
range of human ears. Only the singer and 
the wild-folk for whom he sang could hear the 
best part of the hermit-thrush’s song. 

“Won’t we ever hear it?’’ said Alice-Palace. 

“Some day,” said the Captain, “we’ll hear 
all the music that we can’t hear now.” 







THE OWL CALL „ 

The bird-migration month of May was past 
and the Band were now spending most of their 
spare time birds-nesting. Every afternoon after 
school and all day on Saturdays they would 
hunt and hunt. Whenever they found a nest 
each of them wrote in his blank bird-book 
when and where it was found, what it was made 
of, how many eggs there were, how they looked, 
how the parent-birds looked, what they did, 
what they said — there were lots and lots of 
things to set down. Then the Third, who had 
a new camera, would take a photograph of the 
nest and each of the Band would paste a print 
of it in his bird-book. Then they would 
visit the different nests as often as they could 
and write down what they saw. The Captain 
said that notes on nests and birds were always 
valuable. Anybody might find out something, 
even from the most ordinary nest, that had 
never been known before. That was the rea- 
son, he said, why all the great ornithologists of 
the country were so anxious to have people 
make notes about the birds. Only, he told the 
Band, they must write down only what they 
71 


72 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


were sure they saw and heard and never guess 
at anything. He said, too, that this was a 
much better way of collecting than taking the 
nests and eggs, for that was like spending 
principal. There would never be any more in- 
come from the nests, such as the fun of visiting 
them and showing them to other bird-lovers, 
and seeing the young birds when they came, 
and watching them be fed. Then, too, each egg 
taken meant one bird less and nearly every bird 
was worth a dollar a year to the farmers because 
of the insects and weed-seeds it ate. 

The Captain had promised to show them how 
to find a meadow-lark’s nest, for which they 
had hunted many times in the pasture without 
success. Taking a long string he tied one end 
to Trottie’s left and the other to Honey’s right 
leg j ust above the ankle. They moved out until 
the cord was taut, and then started across the 
meadow. The string touched the top of the 
long grass over a space of nearly a hundred feet. 
The rest of the Band and the Captain deployed 
out and followed behind. They had not gone 
twenty yards when right in front of the swish- 
ing cord a brown streaked bird flew up. The 
Band dashed to the place and there, fastened to 
the long grasses and touching the ground, was a 
nest made of weed-stalks lined with grass and 
holding five pale-blue eggs, all scrawled and 


THE OWL CALL 


73 


spotted with strange dark purple and black 
marks. The streaked bird and a magnificent 
black bird, which wore a scarlet epaulette on 
each shoulder, edged with buff and white, flew 
around and around, making sharp, scolding 
notes. It was the nest of the red-winged black- 
bird, which more often builds on a tussock or 
in a low bush in swamps than on the ground. 
The Band took a recess to write up their bird- 
books and then started the drag again. On the 
slope of a little hill a big brown bird with a 
bright yellow breast with a black crescent on it 
sprang from the grass and glided away showing 
white tail-feathers as it flew. Again the Band 
rushed to the spot, where the bird had flown 
up, but hunt as they would they could find no 
nest. 

“Look back of the string,” said the Captain. 
“This bird usually runs away from its nest be- 
fore it flies.” 

The Band took his advice, and fully ten feet 
from where the sly bird started up, Henny- 
Penny found on the ground a big nest made of 
woven grass arched over in front and holding 
five large white eggs speckled thick with red- 
dish-brown spots. When the Band had finished 
writing up this find it was getting towards 
supper-time and the Captain decided to bivouac 
in the New Forest. The Forest was a wood of 


74 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


beech-trees between two round green hills that 
the Captain had once discovered. At its very 
heart was a bubbling spring of clear water that 
never froze in winter nor failed in summer. At 
the edge of the wood was the Haunted House, 
which the Band planned to explore some day 
when they all felt unusually brave. As soon 
as they entered the Forest the whole Band 
changed. Henny-Penny became Will Scarlet, 
Alice-Palace was Maid Marion. The Captain 
wanted to be Robin Hood, but the Band un- 
kindly decided that he was built on the exact 
lines of Friar Tuck. Trottie was appointed 
Robin Hood over all other competitors because 
of the fact that he alone could wind a hunting- 
horn. It was carried in his pocket and looked 
much like a whistle. The Third, as the tall- 
est, became Little John and Honey was Allan 
a’Dale. Thus changed the Band followed a dim 
path fringed with white-thorn bloom and sprays 
of sweet viburnum. Against the amber after- 
glow showed the faint tracery of the late-leafing 
beeches. As the path wound its way among the 
white, bare boles the woods had the effect of a 
sudden silenec. 

“They’ve stopped talking,” said Robin 
Hood in a hushed voice. 

“Who?” queried little Will Scarlet in a 
startled whisper. 


THE OWL CALL 


75 


“Oh — They,” Robin said, mysteriously, and 
the Band with one accord closed up around the 
Friar, while a little hand that seemed to belong 
to that dashing blade, Will Scarlet, slipped into 
one of his. At last the gallant company 
reached a bank all blue and white with enam- 
eled innocents. In front was the bare path on 
which the camp fire was always kindled. The 
Band scattered for firewood, although not far, 
for there were too many lurking shadows among 
those tree trunks. Then came the Lighting of 
the Camp Fire. This was always the duty of 
Friar Tuck. Time was when he had done his 
devoir with a flint arrowhead, an old file and 
tinder made from a half-charred rag and carried 
in the shell of a Mauser cartridge. Having 
thus given the Band a taste of his real quality as 
a woodsman, he had, however, gone back to the 
more prosaic safety match. It was the Rule of 
the Camp Fire that the Fire-lighter must be 
limited to one match. If so be that he failed, 
the honor descended to Little John and so on in 
succession down to Maid Marion, the newest re- 
cruit. The Friar took no chances. With great 
care he selected four dry beech leaves and broke 
a handful of tiny dry twigs from a near-by horn- 
beam. The leaves were crumpled into a ball 
and over this a little tepee was built from twigs. 
Above this were criscrossed layers of beech and 


76 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


black-oak branches, and then, with this struc- 
ture as a hub, was built a wheel of heavy beech, 
hornbeam, red cedar and white-oak limbs, all of 
which make a hot, clear flame and good coals 
for cooking. 

When the fire was built at last to the Friar’s 
liking he knelt down on the windward side, 
match in hand. It was a tense moment. The 
match sputtered and Little John and Robin 
Hood anxiously watched a tongue of flame creep 
up through the leaf-ball to the dry twigs. It 
would be unworthy of their fair fame to say that 
they hoped that for once the tiny flame would 
flicker and die out in darkness. Probably the 
sigh that they heaved when the inner pyre of 
twigs at last turned into a heart of fire was one 
of relief rather than of disappointment. At any 
rate, five minutes later all powers of darkness 
fled for their fives before the steady roaring 
column of smokeless flame that surged up. 

Followed feasting and wassail. Great 
haunches of venison broiled hissingly at the 
end of green hornbeam spits and tasted much 
like muttonchops. Flagons of Adam’s ale were 
quaffed, and there was song and story while the 
loving-cup, it was of the folding variety, passed 
from hand to hand. Then as the fire died down 
to the steady glow of red embers the Band 
moved in closer while the Friar related, without 


THE OWL CALL 


77 


undue modesty, divers of his adventures by 
field and flood. Thereafter Allan a’Dale re- 
cited sundry selections from the “Lay of the 
Last Minstrel,” recently memorized after school 
as a penalty for things ill-done and undone. 
It must have been the tale of that wondrous 
wizard, Michael Scott and his book of gramarie, 
that started the Friar on a quest for renown. 

“Hist,” he said impressively, and heaved him- 
self up beside the dying fire. There was not a 
sound in the sleeping forest. Wood-folk, 
water-folk — all were still. Then from the 
pursed lips of the Friar came a long, wavering, 
mournful call. Sad it was, with a certain eerie 
wildness of quality like a lonely wind shrilling 
at midnight through gaunt branches. Again 
and again the sound shuddered away across the 
neighboring hills. Suddenly, so far away that 
at first it seemed an echo, it was answered. 
Again and again the call sounded and each time 
the answer came nearer and louder, and it was 
evident that whatever had been called was 
coming fast. Then suddenly across the fire- 
light drifted a dark form with fiery eyes and 
silent wings. With one accord the Band threw 
themselves on the Friar, who rocked under the 
impact. 

“Oo — oo — oo I” observed Maid Marion 
loudly. 


78 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“Don’t do it any more, Fathy,” wailed lit- 
tle Will Scarlet. 

“Can’t you stop It cornin’ p” inquired Allan 
a’ Dale, anxiously. v 

“Oughtn’t we to draw a circle around the 
fire?” whispered Robin Hood. 

“No, a pen-pen-pentacle,” stuttered Little 
John. 

The Friar stopped. 

“I am surprised, Comrades,” he said se- 
verely. “You aren’t afraid of an old screech 
owl, are you?” 

“N-n-n-o,” quavered Will Scarlet, “if you’re 
sure it’s a nowl.” 

“Certain sure,” asserted the Friar, and gave 
the call again, this time with a long tremolo 
note at the end. Around and around the light, 
but never across it, skimmed the owl, and ever 
it gave its cry, the sweetest, weirdest of all the 
night-notes. Finally it lighted on a near-by 
tree and began a little crooning call — the love- 
song of its kind, which the Friar could only ap- 
proximate. It waited for an answer, giving at 
times another little squawking note, which was 
also beyond the Friar. At last, disgusted with 
his clumsy attempts to continue a conversation 
so well begun, it melted silently away into the 
darkness. 

Anything after that performance would be 


THE OWL CALL 


79 


an anticlimax, the Band felt. Water was 
poured on the blaze and earth heaped over the 
hissing embers, and under the sullen flare of 
Antares and Arcturus the Band started home- 
ward through dim wood-roads and flower- 
scented lanes. Will Scarlet and Maid Marion 
frankly claimed either hand of the Friar, and in 
the darkest places even the redoubtable Robin 
himself casually took possession of an unoccu- 
pied thumb. 


I 




























































































■ ■ 




& 






.V/ 






THE LITTLEST NEST OF ALL 



THE BEST NEST 


“Comrades,” said the Captain one Monday 
morning at breakfast, “I have an announce- 
ment to make. Next Saturday afternoon a 
noble-hearted philanthropist has offered to 
give a prize to the one of the Band who can 
show at that time the most interesting nest. 
The judge of the contest will be the Quarter- 
master-General, sometimes known as Mother.” 

“Who’s the philoranthroperist?” piped up 
Henny-Penny. 

“For certain military reasons,” said the 
Captain darkly, “he wishes his name to remain 
unknown.” 

“What’s the prize?” demanded the practical 
Honey-Bee. 

“It’ll be something well worth winning,” re- 
sponded the Captain mysteriously, “if only 
you do your part.” 

“I know where there’s a nice, wriggly, 
worm’s nest,” announced Alice-Palace, “full of 
squirmy baby- worms in a napple tree.” 

“No,” said Mother firmly, “wriggly worms’ 
nests are barred.” 

Every spare hour of the next six days was 
given over to huntings and scurryings and se- 
81 


82 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


crets. By Saturday each member of the Band 
was acting very puffly and important, and it 
was plain that every single one of them ex- 
pected to win the prize. The Interesting Nest 
Competition was scheduled to begin at two- 
thirty, on the arrival of the Captain’s train. 
As the great Salamanca Bell of the clock 
tower of Wentworth Farm, which sets the time 
for miles around, chimed the half-hour, the 
whole band was drawn up at the foot of Violet 
Hill to meet the Captain. Besides the Quar- 
termaster-General there were the Reserves, con- 
sisting of Aunt Alice and Uncle Jack, and Min- 
nie and Annie of the Commissary Depart- 
ment, and John the gardener, of the Engi- 
neers’ Corps, relieved from trench-duty that 
afternoon, beside a number of miscellaneous 
civilians who were allowed occasionally to at- 
tend a review of the Band. Suddenly down 
the road sounded the call of the cardinal 
grosbeak. A minute later the Captain him- 
self appeared around a corner of the shrubbery. 

The Third led off. Down Violet Hill, across 
the lawn, along the curving driveway and 
through the great stone gates he went, fol- 
lowed by the Band and their camp followers. 
Up Roberts Road he led them to where the 
sidewalk ran directly under a squatty dog- 
wood tree, which naturally the Band had 


THE BEST NEST 


83 


learned to tell by its bark. Not five feet from 
the ground was a crotch where four large 
branches shot out from the main trunk. Prob- 
ably fifty people had passed directly under 
this tree that day, including the Captain, and 
most of the procession, for it was on the road 
which led to the station. No one, however, 
but the Third had ever noticed that over the 
edge of the crotch a couple of straws showed, 
together with what looked like a sharp- 
pointed, yellowish thorn. Reaching up his 
finger, the Third touched the thorn. Imme- 
diately, with an indignant chirp, a mother 
robin flew out. The thorn had been her beak, 
just showing over the edge of the mud nest 
which she had built slyly to fit a deep hollow 
in the crotch. So silently had she brooded 
over the four turquoise-blue eggs which gleamed 
out of the grass-lined nest that no one save the 
Third had even suspected what was there. 
One by one the Band and the visitors filed 
past and took turns at peeping into the nest. 
The Judge came last. 

“It’s a dear nest,” she said, smiling into the 
Third’s eyes, which were as blue as the eggs. 
With a couple of reproachful chirps Mrs. 
Robin took her place again in the nest and 
the march was resumed. 

“Nothing but an old robin’s nest,” scoffed 


84 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Trottie, who came next. “Come along with 
me and I’ll show you a real nest.” 

Back again up the hill, past the white-oak 
tree and clear down into the pasture where the 
windmill stood, they went. Part of the pas- 
ture, which sloped down to the brook, had 
been plowed up for corn and the plowed land 
came nearly to a rail fence, along which Trottie 
led the Band. He stopped in front of a little 
stake which he had stuck into the hard ground 
just beyond the last furrow. 

“Gee!” he shouted excitedly a second later. 
“They’ve hatched!” 

The Band and the visitors crowded up to see. 
From a little hollow in the crumbling side of 
the narrow belt of turf along the fence was 
pouring a procession of tiny turtles, each one 
about the size of a twenty-five-cent piece. 
Unerringly and unhesitatingly they marched 
out from the nest and across the long plowed 
field in the straightest possible line to the 
brook. Behind the van-guard some were even 
then just struggling out of long, white, cylin- 
drical eggs with tough parchment-like shells. 
The unhurrying, unhesitating little turtles paid 
no attention to the squeals of the Band or to 
the crowd of faces which bent down toward 
them. Trottie told the interested Judge how 
he had found old, fierce Mrs. Snapping Turtle 


THE BEST NEST 


85 


just coming out of the nest, which she had 
made by forcing the back end of her shell into 
the side of the tiny bank. As she came out the 
earth fell in after her and covered up to ex- 
actly the right depth the handful of snowy 
eggs which she had laid. 

“That’s a very interesting nest, too,” said 
the Judge, pulling one of Trottie’s floppy ears 
as he pointed out to her every last detail of 
his discovery. 

From the pasture Honey-Bee hurried them 
to the Linden Walk. There two avenues of 
linden trees came together at a right angle and 
made a shaded spot on the hottest summer 
day. Down the cool path Honey-Bee led 
them. The branches of the lindens, with their 
funny lopsided leaves, bent down until they 
almost touched the ground. About the mid- 
dle of one of the walks Honey stopped and 
pushed through the crooked branches until he 
reached the open lawn beyond. From a little 
fork of an outer branch overhung by leaves 
swung a tiny woven basket. It was made of 
fine, tough grass and thatched on the outside 
with white strips of birch-bark and bits of 
spider silk. Inside, the nest was lined with the 
fine needles of the white pine. Over the edge 
of the nest peeped the head of a little bird 
with a tiny hooked beak — the field-mark of 


86 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


the vireo. Above its eye was a white stripe 
with a black stripe just below, while the iris of 
the eye itself was of a dark red color, all of 
which marked the bird as the red-eyed vireo. 
As the party came nearer and nearer the little 
bird shifted uneasily and several times started 
to fly. 

Finally, however, it gave one look around as 
if to say, “I’m going to guard these eggs 
whatever happens,” and snuggled down close 
into the nest, refusing even to move. Honey- 
Bee put his hand out very slowly and stroked 
the trembling little gray back. At that Mrs. 
Vireo pecked his finger like a little setting hen, 
and then cuddled her head trustfully up against 
it. Honey-Bee finally persuaded her to perch 
on the rim of the nest so that the Judge could 
see the four eggs like pink pearls, spotted with 
reddish brown at the larger end. The mo- 
ment her visitors moved away she went back 
to her eggs with a contented little chirp. 

“What do you think of that for a nest?” 
exulted Honey to Mother as Henny-Penny 
took the lead. 

“One of the most interesting that I’ve seen,” 
said the latter judicially, and that was all 
that Honey-Bee could get out of her. 

Henny-Penny led the Band, civilians, camp 
followers and all, straight to the house. Across 


THE BEST NEST 


87 


the wide veranda and through the broad door- 
way they marched and up the curving stair- 
case which stopped to rest every few steps at 
comfortable, deep-set landings. 

“It must be a mouse’s nest,” suggested 
Trottie as they filed down the hall toward 
Henny-Penny’s room. 

“Or a spider’s,” said the Third. 

Not a word could they get out of Henny- 
Penny. Across his room he took them, past 
yards of electric railway tracks and going, won- 
derfully constructed machines, made out of 
blocks, spools, nails, and odds and ends of pipe. 
Not until he reached the open window did he 
stop. 

“There,” he said, waving a pudgy hand 
triumphantly toward what seemed to be a knot 
on a limb of a spreading sugar-maple tree 
which came close to the house. 

It was only when they all looked at it 
closely that they saw that it was not a knot, 
but really a tiny nest saddled on a small twig 
and covered with lichens. The opening of 
the nest was just about the size of a twenty- 
five-cent piece. The nest itself was lined with 
the softest of brown and white wool, which the 
Captain said came from ferns. On the out- 
side it was thickly thatched with tiny pieces 
of green lichens and bound around and around 


38 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


in a network of cobwebs, which not only 
lashed it to the limb, but stitched it solidly 
together. Inside were two tiny, long white 
eggs. Even as everybody crowded up to the 
windowseat to see, there came a hum and a 
vivid green tiny bird with a long curved beak 
swooped down upon the nest in front of their 
very eyes. It was the mother ruby-throated 
humming-bird, which lacks the ruby throat. 
For a long time everybody watched and ad- 
mired the nest and the tiny beautiful bird. 

“Mothy,” piped Henny-Penny as they 
started down the stairs again, “that’s the 
bestest of ’em all. Isn’t it?” 

But the Judge only smiled and rumpled 
Henny-Penny’s tousled brown hair. 

“Humph!” said Alice-Palace, making a pout- 
face. “You come see my nest. It isn’t any 
crawly turtle’s or old bird’s nest, but it’s 
better ’n all of them.” 

Down the stairs and through the door they 
all marched again. Straight across the lawn 
Alice-Palace led them. Just ahead of them 
through the shrubbery suddenly darted a 
brown rabbit showing her white powder-puff 
with every jump. On the grass not five feet 
away from a side of the house Alice stopped. 
Just ahead of her lay two dry leaves. Stoop- 
ing down she started to pick these up when 


THE BEST NEST 


89 


again the same brown bunny came circling 
around her, so close that it could almost be 
touched. Underneath the leaves was a tuft 
of brown wool. Lifting that off, Alice beck- 
oned to the Judge and the Band. There in a 
tiny, jug-shaped hollow in the turf about six 
inches deep was a nest lined with soft white 
down plucked from over the little mother’s 
throbbing heart. Inside were six little brown 
heads, six wriggly brown noses, six pairs of 
tightly closed little eyes, with a black line 
between them, and six pairs of flappy ears. 
Right out on the open turf the mother rabbit 
had dug her nest and hidden her babies so 
carefully that not one of the children who had 
run past and over the nest scores of times had 
ever suspected that it was there except Alice- 
Palace. Every one had to come up and pat 
the little funny noses and tickle the soft wav- 
ing ears. Then covering the opening again 
with the patch of rabbit wool and fitting back 
the leaves, they left the nest to Mrs. Bunny. 

The Captain told them that she would guard 
it during the day, driving off cats or birds 
and leading dogs away from the place. As 
soon as it was dusk she would slip into the 
nest herself and feed and cuddle her brown 
babies all through the long night. 

After this last nest the Captain and the 


90 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Judge had a long talk together, while the 
Band waited anxiously for the decision. Fi- 
nally the Captain announced it. 

“The Judge,” he said, “is unable to decide 
which was the most interesting nest. As soon 
as she settles on one she begins to remember 
another. It will be necessary either not to 
give any prize at all” — here the Captain made 
a long pause — “or,” he resumed hurriedly, 
seeing the mouths of Alice-Palace and Henny- 
Penny opening for simultaneous howls, “to 
give a prize to each and every single solitary 
member of the Band. The philanthropist who 
offered the prize is a noble, generous-hearted 
man almost too good for this world. I know 
him very well, indeed, and I feel sure that he 
will insist upon doing this.” 

All of which is the reason why every member 
of the Band is now armed with the latest 
thing in pocket cameras. 































. 







































THE QUEEN FLOWER 


THE QUEEN FLOWER 

Every year the night before the first of July 
the Captain always left the Band and travelled 
two hundred miles into the northern part of 
Connecticut. When he came back he would 
say that he had seen the most beautiful 
thing in the world — but he would never tell 
what it was. This year he took the Band 
with him. Late in the evening of the very 
last day of June they all met in a house which 
their great-great-grandfather had built. There 
they had a wonderful supper and right after- 
wards went to bed. It seemed to them that 
they had hardly closed their eyes when they 
were awakened before daybreak by the Cap- 
tain, who told them to dress quickly and quietly. 
The night-hawks were still twanging in the 
dawn-dusk as they followed a dim, silent road 
which led over the hills and away, all sweet 
with the scent of wild-grape and the drugged 
perfume of chestnut tassels. They crossed the 
bridge over the brook and the Captain showed 
them where he used to stand and catch chubs 
and minnows when he was about as old as 
Henny-Penny. He showed them too the very 
91 


92 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


place by the Sheep Pool where once upon a 
time he had seen a monstrous milk-snake 
crawl across the path into a hay-field. He 
was so scared that he climbed up into an 
apple-tree and stayed there until rescued by a 
searching-party long after supper-time. The 
Band were much pained at this instance of the 
lack of courage on the part of their Captain 
at the beginning of his career. 

“You might have know that milk-snakes 
aren’t dangerous,” said Trottie, patronizingly. 

“Only to mice,” agreed Honey, learnedly. 

“Yes,” said the Captain, “but I didn’t have, 
like you, some one to tell me all those things, 
wise, kind, smart — ” 

“And boasty,” finished Alice-Palace, which 
made all the Band, including the Captain, 
laugh very loud. 

Finally they reached the old farmhouse 
where the Captain’s father had been born and 
where the Captain had spent all of his sum- 
mers as a boy. In front was an enormous, 
wide, flat stepping-stone which the Captain 
told them had been the hearth-stone of his 
grandfather’s first house. Then he showed 
them a deep gouge in the stone, which had 
been made nearly a hundred years ago by the 
axe of old black Hen, who had been brought 
from Africa as a cook on a trading schooner 


THE QUEEN FLOWER 


93 


and lived all his life with the Captain’s grand- 
father. He had a bad temper, and one night 
became so angry that he sunk his axe deep 
into the hearth-stone and went off and was 
gone two years before he came back. 

As they climbed the winding road which led 
up over the hill the Captain showed them Hen’s 
Pine on Pond Hill, which Hen had begged the 
wood-choppers to spare when they cut down 
all the other trees. Under it was buried Hen’s 
old horse Bill, and he had wanted to lie there 
himself with his axe, his fiddle, and the long 
whip with which he used to drive a four-in- 
hand on state occasions. Instead he sleeps on 
a green hilltop beside his old master. 

As they climbed farther and farther up the 
hill the whole Band were anxious to know 
what they were going to see, but the Captain 
told them they must wait. Finally the road 
passed a forgotten barway so sunken in masses 
of sweet fern and so overshadowed by thickets 
of alder and witchhazel that it could hardly be 
seen. Here the Captain stopped them. 

“This is the gateway to the Land of Heart’s 
Desire,” he told them. 

Then he parted the branches and led the 
way into the hush of the sleeping wood. Just 
beyond the open barway a moss-carpeted wood- 
road began. They followed it for a time, until 


94 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


at last they came to some hidden mark that 
only the Captain knew. There they turned off 
into the green tangle of a marshy thicket. 
Through masses of glossy Christmas ferns and 
clumps of feathery, tossing maidenhair they 
crept in single file. Through the thick arched 
branches overhead the dawn-light filtered un- 
til the dusk around them became all green and 
gold. At last before them loomed up a squat, 
broken, white pine. This, the Captain told 
them, was the landmark for which he had 
been looking. Beyond they pushed their way 
through a tangle of sanicle and the Captain 
stopped them in front of a slim elm in whose 
rough bark was carved a rude cross, which he 
told them he had cut to mark the place nearly 
ten years before. 

“Now,” he said in a hushed voice, “on the 
other side of this tree, if we are lucky, some one 
is waiting for us.” 

Close together they stepped out beyond the 
tree and caught a gleam of a white cross 
through the dusk. There, all rose-red and 
snow-white, with parted lips, waited for them 
the loveliest flower of their lives, that great 
orchid, the pink-and-white lady’s-slipper. It 
grew on a tall, round stem covered with fine 
down above brilliant green curved leaves. The 
flower had two narrow white curved petals, 


THE QUEEN FLOWER 


95 


while at right angles towered one of the three 
sepals, making the snowy cross which they had 
first seen. Below the cross hung the lip of 
the flower, a milk-white hollow shell fully an 
inch across and an inch deep and veined with 
crystalline pink which deepened into purple. 
Inside were spots of intense purple which 
showed through the transparent walls. The 
other two white sepals were joined together 
and hung as one behind the lip, while inside 
the flower an ivory-white and gold tongue, 
flecked with wine-colored spots, curved down 
into the shell. For long and long they looked 
before they said good-bye to the Queen. 

“We’ll come again and see you every year,” 
called Henny-Penny, looking wistfully back as 
they started homewards at last through the 
tall ferns. 



- - 
















0 

















* 





* 












« 


% 








V 






























































t 







THE TURK’S CAP LILY 


POND-LILY PATH 


It had been too hot to work and almost too 
hot to play. Across the green lawn and against 
the pink dogwood tree the little waves of heat 
quivered upward. One by one the members of 
the Band took refuge under the cool shade of 
the great white-oak tree just outside of the 
house. Even Henny-Penny and Aiice-Palace, 
the twins, came panting back from some im- 
portant secret mission and threw themselves 
down within the cool circle of shade. 

“I wish,” said Trottie, languidly, “that I was 
swimming in a nice, deep, cool pool. The 
water would be all goldy-brown and every once 
in a while I would duck under and swim along 
the bottom. It would be covered with yellow 
and white sand, and I would pick up colored 
pebbles and mussel-shells, all mother-of-pearl 
inside, and I would let the current carry me 
down and down, and I would stay in hours and 
hours.” 

“Huh,” broke in the Third rudely, “you’re 
talking about the Rancocas and the swimming 
pool by the Cabin. It’s too hot to get there, 
and the Captain wouldn’t let you stay in hours 
and hours anyway.” 


97 


98 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Just at this psychological moment a rapid- 
fire volley of toots sounded from the lower gate, 
and before the astonished eyes of the Band an 
extremely shiny car came speeding around the 
sharp turns of the steep road. It was Honey, 
sitting cross-legged on a low branch of the oak, 
who first recognized the driver. 

“It’s Fathy,” he sequealed delightedly down 
to the rest. 

Sure enough, the car sped tootingly forward, 
swung around the curve by the garage, and 
halted in front of the assembled Band. Such a 
loud shout went up that it awoke Mother, who 
had been sleeping in a cool hammock on the 
veranda. 

“It suddenly occurred to me,” explained the 
Captain, “that it was entirely too hot to prac- 
tice law safely. Accordingly, absolutely re- 
gardless of expense I have had put up the 
nicest, coldest lunch that money could buy. If 
I could possibly get any company,” he went on 
reflectively, “I think I would run out to the 
Cabin and take a swim, and come back in the 
moonlight when it’s cool. I suppose, though,” 
he continued, “that you people are all too busy 
even to think of such a thing.” 

There was a rush and a scramble which 
lasted not over ten seconds. The eleventh 
found Henny-Penny and Alice-Palace in the 


POND-LILY PATH 


99 


front seat with the Captain, while Mother, the 
Third, Honey, and Trottie filled the back seat so 
tightly that it seemed hardly possible that any 
of them would ever be able to get out. In a 
minute they were speeding along the thirty 
miles that separated them from the Cabin and 
the swimming-hole so fast that a breeze blew 
into their faces in spite of the heat. 

“It was me who did all this,” triumphed 
Trottie. “I just wished for this with my 
wishing-stone and it came true.” 

Not even the Third contradicted him. Two 
hours later found the whole Band in the pool, 
carrying out the program of Trottie and his 
wishing-stone. They dived, they swam, they 
floated and they splashed and they ducked and 
they laughed and they squealed (especially 
Alice-Palace) for fully an hour in the magic 
water in which bare legs and arms turned a 
golden bronze. Finally they came out and 
dressed and ate the lunch of which the Captain 
had boasted. It was just as good as he said it 
was. 

In the cool of the afternoon they started ex- 
ploring. Down among the pine-barrens where 
the Cabin stood, this was a favorite game. 
Everywhere through the tangled scrub-oaks 
and pitch-pines ran little paths. Some of them 
they had learned. There was the concealed 


100 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


path which led to Sam Carpenter’s cranberry 
bog, and which started at a little side door in his 
saw-mill and wound through ostrich and inter- 
rupted ferns waist-high and sometimes was so 
covered up that it could not be seen, but had to 
be felt out by the feet of the one going first. 
Then there was the winding wood-road which 
led to the Upper Mill, five long miles away. 
The Captain had finally learned this, although 
twice he lost himself and wandered a whole day 
through a maze of paths and endless stretches of 
barrens before he found his way back. 

To-day they started on the narrow path which 
led to Annie’s Bog, less than two miles away. As 
they started along the winding path which the 
Captain had cut through the thickets from the 
main road to the Cabin, he slipped on ahead. 
As the Band turned around a sharp curve, sud- 
denly an enormous animal rushed on all fours 
at them from a withe-wood thicket with fear- 
some roarings and loud and terrifying growly 
noises. In the narrow pathway the whole 
Band fell backward over each other while the 
cautious Honey, who was bringing up the rear, 
fled for his fife and did not stop until he was 
safe again on the Cabin porch, ready to repel 
bears and other dangerous boarders. It turned 
out after all to be only the Captain, whereupon 
the whole Band fell upon him and rolled him 


POND-LILY PATH 


101 


over and over among the prickly scrub-oak 
leaves until he begged for mercy. 

As they came to the main road, Trottie was 
seized with a brilliant idea. He would scurry 
around the bend and hide himself and spring 
out at the Captain. Accordingly he slipped 
unobtrusively away. The next thing the Band 
knew they heard from the near-by woods the 
voice of Trottie on high. 

“Ow! ow!” he shouted, and in a minute there 
was a crackle in the underbrush and down and 
through the bushes he burst, still making the 
same remark at the very top of his voice. His 
round face was all puckered up with pain, and 
with every jump he yelled “Ow 1” as loud as any 
ten-year-old boy could possibly be expected to 
yell. The Captain ran forward, but Trottie 
was too far gone for words. He finally man- 
aged to point to one bare leg, and there, sure 
enough, was a cluster of no less than six big 
black-and-white hornets, each one stinging 
away with all its might. The Captain had no 
more than brushed these off when Trottie 
pointed to another place. Both legs, one arm, 
and one cheek were badly stung, and, in spite 
of his advanced age and the honorable position 
of second lieutenant which he had won in the 
Band, he cried aloud before them all under the 
intolerable smart of the stings. The Captain 


102 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


did not waste a moment. Running down the 
road he came back with a handful of bluish- 
purple flowers growing in a spike and with long 
curved leaves. 

“Quick,” he said, “chew this,” and he poked 
a bundle of hurriedly plucked leaves into 
Trottie’s mouth just in time to stop another 
cry. Trottie did as he was told, and the Cap- 
tain placed a hurried poultice of the chewed 
leaves on each sting. Almost as if by magic the 
pain stopped, and a wan smile appeared on 
Trottie’s tearful face. 

“Gee,” he remarked, “that feels good. What 
is it?” 

“That,” said the Captain, “is ‘heal-all.’ 
It’s guaranteed to cure all aches, pains, stings 
or burns, even such severe wounds as our brave 
comrade sustained,” he went on. 

“He cried some,” said Henny-Penny; “that 
wasn’t very brave.” 

“Well,” said the Captain, “it wouldn’t be 
ordinarily, but eleven hornets all at once entitle 
any one to a reasonable amount of cry.” 

The Band turned off to a road which cut in 
at an acute angle. They followed this for a 
few rods. Suddenly it disappeared. At right 
angles to its end a dim path showed through the 
blueberry bushes, which wound in and out in a 
delightfully mysterious puzzling way and was 


POND-LILY PATH 


103 


constantly crossed and recrossed by other 
paths which no one had ever had time to follow 
out to the end. 

“It’s just like the paths in ‘The Cloister and 
the Hearth,’ ” observed the Third delightedly. 

“Yes,” chimed in Trottie, forgetting his 
aches, “that place where Girard and Martin 
take her hand and run with the bloodhounds 
after them.” 

“There aren’t not any bad old bloodhounds 
here, are there, FathyP” inquired Henny-Penny 
anxiously, closing up quite close to the Captain. 

“Oo-oo-boo-oo,” barked the teasing Trottie 
from behind a bush in what he fondly believed 
was the very best brand of bloodhound bark. 
The startled and irate Henny-Penny, however, 
at once detected the imposture and pursued 
Second-Lieutenant Trottie with a sharp stick. 
Trottie was only saved from punishment for his 
attempt to trifle with Henny-Penny’s feelings 
by a shout from Honey, who had been carefully 
observing the sides of the path. 

Over there among the blueberry bushes and 
the sweet fern he had spied a beautiful flower 
swinging in mid-air like a purple-pink butter- 
fly. The flower grew from two narrow leaves 
almost like the narrow-leafed plantain. There 
were five beautiful petals arranged something 
like a fleur-de-lis, with two extra petals added 


104 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


at the base. At either side of the glorious 
figure curled a long pink tongue, one of them 
being surrounded by a fuzz of golden anthers. 
It was the calopogon, or grass-pink, one of 
the most beautiful of the summer orchids. 

A moment later, Henny-Penny found a 
glorious towering lily with curled back petals 
which the Captain said was the celebrated 
Turk’s-cap lily. It was Mother who plunged 
into the woods suddenly and came back with 
a bough of sweet magnolia, with its glossy 
leaves and creamy-white blossoms, which had 
a fragrance as overpowering as the scent of the 
tuberose. 

Then the Third found a clump of sun-dews, 
those curious carnivorous plants with tiny 
white blossoms and round red leaves covered 
with reddish hairs, specked with little drops 
of sweet dew, which prove the death of many 
a passing insect. The wanderer alights to 
taste. Immediately the hairs spring around 
him like a trap, and there he is held while the 
plant slowly drains his life-blood. 

This last find was too much for Alice- 
Palace. At first she had claimed that it was 
owing to her shortness that she had not seen the 
purple-pink orchid. She had been just on the 
point of finding both the magnolia and the 
lily when others more greedy and grasping had 


POND-LILY PATH 


105 


stepped in ahead of her. As for the sun-dews, 
she would have none of them. 

“I wouldn’t not want to find any old flower 
that kills nice buzzy little flies,” she said scorn- 
fully. “I’m going to find a norful nice flower, 
much nicer than Henny-Penny’s,” she finished. 
Thereupon she commenced to search, wearing 
her pout-face, which was a sure sign that her 
feelings were much overwrought. A few min- 
utes later she was not there. Mother was the 
first one to notice her absence. The Captain 
looked a little worried. 

“Don’t any of you leave this path,” he said, 
“except myself. Ten yards away and you’ll all 
get lost. Probably she’s gone on ahead.” 

Then he sent the Third to sprint on down the 
path as far as Annie’s house, while he himself 
searched and called all through the adjoining 
barrens. Half an hour passed. The Third had 
come back with the word that there was no trace 
of Alice. The sun was getting low down in the 
sky. Mother looked as if she were going to cry. 

“She’s so little,” she said to the Captain, and 
he made no reply except to dash out again in a 
wide circle through all the thickets and the in- 
terminable little groves of stunted pines which 
stretched for miles and miles, all looking exactly 
alike. Finally he came back. 

“Now,” he said, “let’s all call her name to- 


106 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


gether as loud as we can ten times with a wait 
between each call.” 

So they started with a shout that made the 
empty woods echo far and near. Then they 
waited, but there was only the call of the che- 
wink as he sung for the thousandth time, 
“Come to me-e-e-e, come to me, come to me,” 
while the gay little note of the Maryland yellow- 
throat, with his black mask and tilted tail, 
seemed to mock and flout them as he sang, 
“Wichita, wichita, wichita.” Again they 
shouted and again they waited. For a third 
time they gave a call, which seemed to have 
something of a hopeless drag to it, and Henny- 
Penny, her twin, cried so that he could call no 
more. 

“I wisht I had let her find my lily,” he 
wailed. 

His crying was contagious, and the next call 
was made all alone by the Captain, and his 
voice quavered a good deal at the finish. The 
echoes, however, had hardly died out before 
some one suddenly said, “Here I am,” and there 
from out a little half-concealed path that no one 
had thought of following bobbed the missing 
Alice-Palace. They were all too glad to scold 
her. Moreover, she was too swelling with im- 
portance to be reproved or even petted. 

“Come, Fathy,” she said, “I want to show 


POND-LILY PATH 


107 


you sompin’. All the rest can come, too,” she 
called back condescendingly as she pulled him 
down the hidden path. For a while it ran al- 
most straight between rows of pine-trees and 
then it took a sudden turn and was out in the 
Barrens, where there was nothing except patches 
of white sand. Here and there it wound, twist- 
ing and turning like a snake. Now it crossed 
a deep little ditch and reappeared near the side, 
once it skirted the edge of a marshy place, but 
finally it stretched straight and clear across 
what looked like the moors of old England about 
which the children had so often read. 

For half a mile the Band trotted after Alice. 
Suddenly the path turned and ran along the 
side of what looked like a great dike. Some 
forgotten cranberry grower had once started 
to drain a faraway bog and had dug a ditch 
clear into the dry barrens. The water had fol- 
lowed the ditch and then had made a little 
course of its own beside the long bank. 

Alice ran on ahead and beckoned the Band 
to look. Down below them stretched a still, 
brown brook with a hardly perceptible cur- 
rent. In its dark depths floated scores and 
scores of great white fragrant flowers with 
golden hearts, the rare white pond lily, which 
no one had ever known grew in that part of 
the Barrens. 


108 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“I told you,” said Alice, as they came back 
fifteen minutes later with great sheaths of the 
fragrant flower, “that my flower’d be bettern 
any.” 

And no one contradicted her. 




PURPLE-PINK BUTTERFLIES 


SHEEP-PEN HILL 


The Band was out exploring. The Captain 
had a large pair of field-glasses guaranteed to 
show the pink beak of a field-sparrow at 
a hundred yards. Henny-Penny was armed 
with a high-powered, repeating trowel for dig- 
ging up ferns, flowers, plants, trees — anything 
which might, could, would or should grow in 
his wild-flower garden, and wore a dark smouch 
on the very end of his nose. Alice-Palace car- 
ried a basket nearly as big as herself, the which 
was intended to hold all of Henny-Penny’s loot 
as well as any animal, vegetable, or mineral 
bric-a-brac she might acquire herself. The 
Third had an imposing note-book and a shiny 
yellow pencil. Trottie and Honey took turns 
in carrying what was probably the finest ex- 
ploratory lunch that had been put up since 
Balboa discovered the Pacific. Altogether 
Vasco da Gama, De Soto, Magellan or any 
other professional explorer might have been 
proud to head such a well-equipped band of 
adventurers. 

On the way to Annie’s Bog Henny-Penny 
noticed a strange brown spot on Alice-Palace’s 
109 


110 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


forehead. On close inspection he was horri- 
fied to find that said spot was really a flat, 
many-legged bug with a long, sharp beak that 
was buried in Alice-Palace’s white skin. The 
Captain had to be called before that fierce bug 
could be dislodged. He told them that it was 
a wood-tick. 

“You can hear a watch tick and see a bed- 
tick, but not a wood-tick,” he assured them 
solemnly. 

Soon after the repulse of the tick-attack the 
Band came to a place where a maze of paths 
crossed the one which they were following. 

“Comrades,” announced the Captain, “the 
secret of all successful exploring is to follow 
your nose,” whereupon he plunged into the 
faintest path of all, one nearly hidden in a 
tangle of sweet-fern. In and out it ran for 
miles over bare white sand, through clumps of 
feathery Hudsonia and among masses of sand- 
myrtle with its shining, oval, dark-green leaves. 
Suddenly another path from nowhere cut 
across at right angles. Unhesitatingly the 
Captain turned into it followed by the Band. 
Straight westwards the path ran in the direc- 
tion which explorers have taken since time 
began, following the side of a long straight 
ditch dug generations ago by some forgotten 
cranberry-grower. In the distance was a dark 


SHEEP-PEN HILL 


111 


cedar swamp where gaunt skeleton trees 
showed here and there in pools of black water. 
The Band closed up close to the Captain. 
Anything might dwell there — slimy dragons, 
smooth, sly water-snakes, monsters of all sorts. 
Suddenly the Captain stopped. Just beyond 
a tangled thicket the brook made a bend and 
there in a sort of pocket were a few rods of 
level green marsh. The waving green was 
stained here and there with strange, beautiful 
flowers that looked as though a swarm of pink 
butterflies had alighted for a moment on the 
grass-tops. The flowers themselves grew on 
long green stems like blades of grass and 
ended in tiny white bulbs. These stems were 
in angled joints and from each bend sprang a 
blossom about an inch long which had five 
petals of a purple-pink deepening at the center 
to a pink-purple. Above them towered a 
heart-shaped lip bearing a brush of orange, 
rose, and yellow bristles. For long the Band 
looked and looked. Henny-Penny’s trowel 
twitched in his hand but the Captain told him 
that the flowers would not transplant. 

“The darlingest things I ever saw,” cried 
Alice-Palace, stretching out her arms toward 
them. 

The Captain said that it was a colony of the 
grass-pink, one of the most beautiful of our 


112 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


orchids. One only was picked to show Mother, 
for to pick an orchid means that the flower will 
not come up again. While the Third was 
making extensive notes for the “Band-Book,” 
from out of the marsh ahead a great bird 
flapped. It had such vast wings that Alice- 
Palace was positive that it was a Roc. The 
Captain said that although it did have a Roc- 
ish look it was really a great blue heron, the 
largest bird in Eastern America. 

Just after this they came to a couple of 
maple poles stretched across the brook, which 
must have been there for a long, long time, 
since the bark had all rotted off from them 
both. Testing them carefully the Captain 
teetered his way over. Then from the other 
side he stretched a long stick and with that 
as a support, beginning with the littlest, one 
by one the rest of the Band sidled across — all 
except Second-Lieutenant Trottie. That gal- 
lant officer scorned any help. At first he had 
no trouble with the tippy bridge. Then the 
wretched poles began to sway. Trottie bal- 
anced desperately like a rope-dancer, but when 
one pole turned completely over he stepped 
into the deep brown water with a howl. 
Thereafter he crawled dripping up the bank 
amid great laughter. The Captain told him 
that he was proud of his bravery — but not of 


SHEEP-PEN HILL 


113 


his sense, which made the Band laugh more 
than ever. 

Just beyond the poles the Captain began to 
search through the long marsh-grass. 

“Hist!” he said at last mysteriously and dis- 
appeared among the bushes. When the Band 
reached the place they found the beginning of 
a path deep trodden in the grass and cut 
through the very heart of dense thickets. 
Sometimes it was so covered by fern and brake 
that they could only follow it by feeling it 
underfoot. For miles and miles it wound over 
hillocks and through bogs. Then it disappeared 
and the Band found themselves on a narrow 
road crossing a wide flat stretch of grassy land. 
Beyond a clump of trees they stepped sud- 
denly into a little village. There was a public 
square with a wooden pump; a store, an inn 
and some twenty houses were scattered along 
two or three short streets. The Band marched 
down the main road expecting every minute 
to meet some one or to hear voices, but there 
was no sight nor sound. Then a chewink sang 
from the porch of the store and the shy prairie 
warbler ran up its scale of six notes near a 
boarded window. The leaves lay thick on the 
house-steps and there were no wheel-marks or 
footprints on the streets. The Captain told 
them that this must be the deserted settle- 


114 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


ment of Sheep-Pen Hill, to which he had never 
been able to find his way before. Fifty years 
ago a hundred people lived there and raised 
sheep in fields which had long gone back to 
brush and blueberries. 

For a while the Band wandered among the 
empty houses. Then suddenly they all de- 
cided at the same time that they wanted to 
go home. Why did the old houses stare at 
them so? Why had men deserted the place? 
Hurrying back on their tracks they stole 
away, nor did they feel quite easy again until 
a high ridge hid the gaunt, staring houses 
from their sight. In the depths of a wood all 
sweet with the scent of white azalea and the 
spicy fragrance of magnolia and bayberry, 
they spent so much time on that wonderful 
lunch that the sun was set before they reached 
the Cabin and Mother. 


* 




















































































































THE BARRENS 



THE PLAINS 


The Captain had just come back from the 
hot city to the Cabin, set in a fringe of cool 
green boughs. From beside the leaning pine 
that marked the deepest part of the Pool he 
dived straight and deep. Swimming under the 
cedar-water that turned his bare arms and legs 
all gold he stayed down so long that the pessi- 
mistic Henny-Penny feared the worst. Then 
suddenly he was on the top of the Pool, giving 
a wonderful exhibition of all the swimming- 
strokes known to man. At least so he said. 
Then he went under again and swam down with 
the current clear to the white sand beach 
around the bend. There he floated and ate 
blueberries from the laden overhanging bushes. 
The Band could only envy him from the bank, 
since each one had already equaled the Cabin’s 
allowance of three swims per day. Finally, 
when he came out and was dry and dressed and 
cool, he assembled the Band. To them he 
spoke with the stern brevity which character- 
izes all great leaders. 

“To-morrow afternoon, two-thirty-five, tank 
duty.” 


115 


116 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


At exactly 2.34J p. m. the next day, shortly 
after the arrival of the afternoon train from the 
city, there sounded in the sandy road outside 
the woods in which the Cabin was buried a 
puffing and a rumbling and a clanking which 
made the Band squeal like anything. When, 
however, they charged at full speed into the 
road from out the winding path they found that 
the tank was only the station-agent’s big motor- 
truck, all fitted up with seats and big enough 
to hold Band and baggage. In exactly eleven 
seconds, suntime, they were all at their sta- 
tions, prepared for anything. The Captain said 
that if they would only be as prompt for break- 
fast-duty and bed-duty it would make his life 
far happier. Then as they went rumbling and 
rattling and lurching along he told them that 
they were bound for the Plains. This was a 
stretch of thirty square miles of plateau, set in 
the wildest and most inaccessible part of the 
Barrens, where nothing grew over two feet 
high. All the trees were dwarfed, like the 
funny tiny ones in Japanese tea-gardens. 

“What makes ’em so littly?” inquired 
Henny-Penny, the gardener. 

“That,” replied the Captain, “is a secret 
which I mustn’t tell.” 

“He won’t tell because he doesn’t know,” 
called out Mother from the front seat. The 


THE PLAINS 


117 


Captain said if he heard any more such talk 
some one would be court-martialed, which 
made the Band laugh, for of course a Captain 
couldn’t court-martial a General. 

Before long the narrow road became even 
narrower, and ran through dense thickets and 
dark cedar-swamps, where the tank cut its way 
through overhanging boughs. In places the 
Band had to he down flat on their tummies not 
to be slashed by the whipping branches through 
which they crashed. Once they came out into 
a long, grassy stretch where a mansion-house 
was mouldering away in the woods where great 
glass-works used to stand. Later they passed 
iron- works abandoned for half a hundred years. 
Where there used to be the hum and roar of 
furnaces, now there was nothing but the singing 
of the wind through the low pine-trees. The 
Captain told them that this was Mary Ann’s 
Forge, where many of the cannon which the 
Continental Army used in the Be volution had 
been made out of bog-iron. The owner had 
named it after his favorite daughter. 

“I’m going to call it the Alice-Palace Forge,” 
announced the Corporal of the Band. “It’s a 
much prettier name.” 

Thereupon arose a discussion which lasted 
for at least five miles between the Corporal 
and the Sergeant, who felt strongly that the 


118 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


place should be christened “Henny-Penny 
Forge.” 

At last after hours’ traveling through a maze 
of intersecting, twisting, half-hidden roads the 
tank began to climb toward a distant ridge of 
trees. 

“Every one shut their eyes tight,” com- 
manded the Captain, “until I give the word 
to look.” 

Accordingly the whole Band, including the 
Captain and the Quartermaster-General, sat 
silent with eyes screwed tight shut. Only the 
driver kept his open. Anyway, he had been 
there before, so that it did not matter. At last 
the Band felt the tank pass over the ridge and 
down on the other side. 

“Open Sesame!” shouted the Captain, quite 
like Ah Baba. There was a chorus of Oh’s from 
every one. Before them stretched a vast, roll- 
ing plain, sparsely covered with what looked to 
be low bushes, but which were really tiny trees. 
Everywhere were blueberries, and the Band 
did very little investigation until they had con- 
sumed a quart or so apiece of these. Then the 
Captain called them to see a strange plant. It 
looked like a clump of dead leaves and stalks, 
out of which were growing scores and hundreds 
of tiny green stems with pinkish, purplish ends 
looking almost like pine needles. He told them 


THE PLAINS 


119 


that this was the celebrated Conrade’s crow- 
berry which had been discovered nearly a hun- 
dred years ago by a man named Conrade at 
Pemberton. Then it had been lost for fifty 
years, only to be found again in the Plains. 

“Is it good to eat?” demanded the unbotan- 
ical Alice-Palace. 

“No, but it’s very interesting,” explained the 
Captain. 

“Not to me,” responded the Corporal, re- 
turning to her blueberry patch. 

It was Trottie who made the discovery of the 
day. As he wandered through the knee-high 
forest, he heard in front of him a shrill peeping 
like that of little chickens, except for a curious 
little upward trill at the end of every peep. He 
called the Captain. Hunt as they would, they 
could not catch a glimpse of the peepers, but 
the Captain said that he had heard the same in 
the barrens of the island of Martha’s Vineyard, 
and that he believed they had come upon a 
brood of young heath-hens. The heath-hen is 
the Eastern form of the prairie chicken, which 
two hundred years ago used to be found all 
through the Eastern states. To-day it is sup- 
posed to be entirely extinct except in certain 
wild places on Martha’s Vineyard. The Cap- 
tain said that he would arrange to have the 
Band visit the Plains again in the spring. 


120 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Then if there were any heath-hens living there, 
they would hear the strange, booming sound 
which the cocks make from two yellow air-sacs 
set on either side of their necks. 

As the light at the edge of the Plains began 
to turn purple and the shadows of the little 
trees grew longer and longer, the Band sat down 
to supper. Across the ridges and up and down 
the hollows swept a cool salt breeze from the 
ocean miles away, and some way the Band felt 
sorry to leave the high still Plains and go down 
to every-day life again. 

The most exciting adventure of the day came 
last. In the end of the twilight they were 
whirling through the woods, when suddenly up 
from the brush, not fifty yards away, sprang 
two lithe, beautiful, red-brown deer. One 
was a buck with a magnificent pair of branching 
antlers. He was in such a hurry to get away 
that he tripped and fell to his knees, while his 
mate, a wide-eyed doe, stopped and waited for 
him. Then they both started off again at full 
speed only to stop once more to look at the 
strange, puffing, rattling thing which had roused 
them from their thicket. For long human-folk 
and wild-folk stared at each other through the 
trees, and the Band’s last memory of that day 
was their wild, beautiful faces. 










































































































































► Jgv 










THE CHEWINK’S NEST 








THE HUNTING OF THE SWIFT 


“An’ then, an’ then!” went on Alice-Palace, 
“a great big norful Swift came and ate up the 
big old, bad old boy, but it never touched the 
neatly, tidy little girl.” 

“Pooh,” said the disorderly Henny-Penny 
uneasily, “I’d whisk up a tree and the old 
Swift’d never catch me.” 

“Swifts can climb like anything,” responded 
Alice-Palace. 

“They can’t,” bellowed her twin. 

“They can,” shrilled Alice-Palace, and the 
dispute was taken to the Captain. 

“Both of you are right,” was his diplo- 
matic decision. “It all depends on the swift. 
Chimney-swifts can’t climb, pine-swifts can.” 

“What kind of a bird is a pine-swift?” in- 
quired Trottie, the ornithologist of the band. 

The Captain pondered deeply. “Com- 
rades,” he announced suddenly, “at daybreak 
to-morrow we start to hunt the pine-swift to 
his lair. To bed at once; you’ll need all your 
strength.” And the Captain shook his head 
ominously. 

That very night each member of the Band 
prepared for the worst. Honey put new rub- 
121 


122 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


bers on his trusty slingshot, with which he 
could frequently hit a barn door at five paces. 
Trottie oiled up the air rifle, which he was 
only allowed to use in windowless wildernesses. 
Henny-Penny kept up such a fusillade with 
his new popgun that mother threatened to 
send him forth unarmed on the morrow if she 
heard but one more pop. Alice-Palace’s prac- 
tise, however, was the most spectacular. She 
had a water pistol, which when properly 
charged would propel a stream of water an 
unbelievable distance. From the bath-room 
door she took a snapshot at Henny-Penny, who 
was approaching her confidingly. The charge 
took effect in the very center of a large pink 
ear. It was a long time before Henny-Penny 
could be convinced that he was not mortally 
wounded. 

At dawn the next morning from the Captain’s 
room sounded the adventure call of the Band. 
Followed thumps, splashings, and sounds of 
rapid dressing from the third story, where the 
Band bivouacked. 

Noon found them miles deep in the Barrens. 
On every side stretched miles and miles and 
miles of stiff green pitch-pines like trees for a 
Noah’s ark, all overhung by a warm blue sky. 
Far, far overhead wheeled and swung a great 
black bird with fringed wings. Beyond him 


THE HUNTING OF THE SWIFT 


123 


was another and still another, and way off by 
the horizon was a black speck which the Cap- 
tain said was yet another. He told them that 
these were turkey-buzzards, or vultures, wheel- 
ing back and forth and quartering the whole 
sky watching for any dying or dead animal. 
If one vulture dropped down to earth he would 
be followed by the next and the next, like a 
long chain, until six or eight buzzards would 
gather around the carcass. Then the Captain 
told them how the buzzard nests in hollow 
logs in the barrens, and what an exciting thing 
it is to find a nest, because a nesting buzzard 
has a dangerous habit. He wouldn’t tell them 
what the habit was, though they guessed and 
guessed. 

All along the pathways grew clumps of 
low bushes covered with bright golden blos- 
soms, which the wind piled up in little yellow 
drifts against the white sand. This was the 
Hudsonia or barrens heather, the Captain 
said, and a new lot of blossoms bloomed on 
each plant every day to make up for those 
which the wind blew away. Suddenly from 
out of a leucothoe bush all covered with 
swinging fragrant white bells a little bird 
with an olive back, a saucy tilted tail, a yel- 
low throat and breast, and a black mask over 
its cheeks and eyes, sang and sang and sang. 


124 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“It says, ‘What-a-pity, what-a-pity, what-a- 
pity,’ ” said Alice-Palace. 

The Captain told the Band that it was the 
Maryland or northern yellow-throat, one of 
the warblers that lived in the Barrens. As 
they came near the bird stopped singing and 
was joined by the female, who had the olive 
back and yellow throat, but lacked the mask. 
Then they met a pair of chewinks, black and 
white over rust-red, which began to dive 
through the bushes and call out, “Chit! Chit! 
Chit!” as sharply as if they had pebbles in 
their throats. That meant, the Captain told 
them, that there was a nest on the ground 
somewhere near. 

So the whole Band began to hunt and hunt. 
It was like playing “hot and cold,” for when 
they got near the nest the birds would flutter 
around frantically and redouble their alarm 
notes. If they moved away, the birds be- 
came quieter. Finally Henny-Penny hap- 
pened to look at the foot of a little clump of 
sheep-laurel all full of deep pink flowers, and 
there was the nest, all made of pine-needles. 
The four eggs were speckled all over with 
brownish-red marks. The Band all crowded 
around to look and the Captain made Alice- 
Palace and Henny-Penny keep their hands 
behind their backs for fear they would touch 


THE HUNTING OF THE SWIFT 125 


the eggs and perhaps make the mother bird 
desert the nest. They all looked and looked 
until they had learned the birds and the nest 
and the eggs so that they would never forget 
them. The Captain told them that was the 
best way to collect eggs, always to leave them 
in the nest and study them there. Then their 
collection wouldn’t be spoiled by any mem- 
ories of fluttering, crying mother-birds, mourn- 
ing their lost eggs and ruined nests. 

When at last they left the nest it was 
lunch time, and they all started for the Cabin, 
which overhung a bank of the crooked brown 
Rancocas Creek. As they trooped hungrily in 
at the door they heard a loud, deep hum, which 
seemed to come from all parts of the room at 
once. Just over the dining table hung from 
the rafter a swaying, golden-brown, seething, 
humming mass of bees about the size and shape 
of a long watermelon. It was a runaway 
swarm from some hive, which had come down 
the chimney. The Captain told them that if 
the swarm were not touched it would do them 
no harm. A broken swarm, however, he said, 
was dangerous. Men and animals have been 
stung to death by accidentally running against 
one. So they all sat and ate and ate very 
quietly. Even Alice-Palace talked in whis- 
pers, her eyes fixed on the swaying swarm 


126 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


above. At last the Captain announced that 
all world-records for long-distance eating were 
broken. Anyway, everything was gone. So 
they stopped. Just then something squeaked 
and chattered from the small fireplace at the 
opposite side of the room. Trottie ran over 
to see. 

“Come quick!” he shouted. “Here’s two 
weeny little birds on a funny nest.” The 
Band rushed to him. 

As they got there a rumbling noise like 
thunder came from the chimney, which made 
the cautious Henny-Penny retire behind the 
Captain with wonderful rapidity. The Cap- 
tain told them that the nest was that of a 
chimney swift which had fallen, and that the 
noise was made by the beating of the swifts’ 
wings as they flew out of the chimney. 

The nest itself was made of little sticks all 
glued together and fastened to the chimney. 
The Captain told them that the swifts break 
off these dead twigs from the trees while in 
full flight and glue them with a sticky liquid 
from their bills. The two naked little birds 
cried and cried, but the Captain set them and 
the nest up in a ledge inside the chimney so 
that after the Band had gone the mother bird 
might come back and feed them. 

Then he took the Band outside and in the 


THE HUNTING OF THE SWIFT 127 


high sky showed them birds with cigar-shaped 
bodies circling and twittering far above. These 
were chimney-swifts, and he showed them how 
they could be told from swallows by their dif- 
ferently shaped bodies and by their flight. 
The wings of a swift flutter alternately, while 
those of a swallow for the most part swoop 
together. 

Then they marched in single file through the 
pine-trees, keeping a very close watch on every 
side for the other swifts. Suddenly right 
ahead of Henny-Penny something shot across 
the hot sand, over the dry leaves and up a tree 
before he could even pop once. The Band 
halted with raised weapons. 

“What was that?” inquired Honey tremu- 
lously. 

“That,” said the Captain, peering up the 
tree, “was a Swift.” 

“It looked more like a Streak,” remarked 
Trottie. 

Just then a gray-ridged head looked around 
the tree-trunk about ten feet up. Instantly 
there sped unerringly (more or less) toward 
said head a devastating volley, to wit, one 
buckshot, one pebble, one stream of water and 
no fewer than four exceedingly loud pops. 
The fiercest Swift could not stand against such 
a fusillade. This one did not even try. The 


128 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


head disappeared in a wink. Just as the Band 
believed the Swift to be fatally wounded it 
peeped out from the other side of the tree. 
Then in a flash it was staring at them from be- 
hind a branch, from back of a stub, from down 
near the foot of the tree, from up at the tip- 
top. There was no place where that unscrupu- 
lous Swift might not be expected. Only when 
all the ammunition was gone did the Captain 
enter the fray with a long stick. By this time 
the Swift was back in his original position, his 
sly head peering down at them. The Cap- 
tain executed a flank movement. While the 
Swift was waiting ready to dodge a frontal at- 
tack, he was suddenly dislodged by a well- 
directed poke from the rear. As he struck the 
ground the whole Band pounced on him. 
Close at hand the Swift did not seem very 
fierce after all. He was only a spiny little 
lizard with a long, wriggly tail, a gray, black- 
banded back and bright blue blotches along 
the lower part of his sides. He was passed 
from hand to hand. Henny-Penny gloated 
over him. 

“I bet it was my popgun that scared this old 
Swift down,” he bragged. 

Just then a startling thing happened. 
Henny-Penny had loosened his grip during his 
boasty talk. Suddenly the Swift flashed out 


THE HUNTING OF THE SWIFT 129 


of his hand, up his arm and disappeared down 
his neck. Up and down Henny-Penny’s bare 
back and around and across his round tummy 
and up and down his waving arms raced the 
Swift. As the scaly, spiny little body ran up 
and down his bare skin, Henny-Penny went 
nearly frantic. The rest of the Band danced 
around trying to help. Finally, just as Henny- 
Penny was desperately tearing off his shirt, the 
wretched Swift flashed into view again, this 
time out of one of the legs of his knicker- 
bockers, and disappeared under a bush. 

“I told you Swifts could climb,” exulted 
Alice-Palace. 


































THE DRAGON 




THE ARGONAUTS 

“And they rowed away over the wine-dark 
sea, heroes all, beyond the sunset where were 
gold, monsters, enchanted islands, and strange 
peoples. For some death waited. For all a 
fame which still rings across the vanished 
years.” 

No one spoke for a long minute as the Cap- 
tain finished reading to the Band before bed- 
time a chapter from the story of that Voyage 
after the Golden Fleece when the world was 
young. 

“There aren’t any more quests left now,” 
said Trottie at last, wistfully. “Everything’s 
been found, — even the North Pole. There’s 
only school and games and books and growing 
up and working and getting old. Why can’t 
we have adventures nowadays?” 

“We can!” shouted the Captain suddenly. 
“Everybody can. The world is full of wonder- 
ful adventures for those who look for them. 
N obody needs to grow old. J ust you wait until 
Saturday and we’ll go argonauting; Mother and 
all.” 


131 


132 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


The end of the week found the whole Band 
on the bank of the Rancocas, which came run- 
ning swiftly and silently to meet them from the 
depths of the pine barrens. In front of the 
cabin, tied to a white cedar, was something the 
sight of which made the Band shout like any- 
thing. There, rocking in the golden water, was 
the largest, shiniest, beautifulest canoe that 
ever a band went adventuring in. Along its 
green side in crimson letters was painted — 
“The Argo.” 

In less than one minute by the cabin clock 
every one of the Band was safely stored 
aboard except Mother. She had charge of 
the commissary, and said that she would stay 
behind and arrange for the feast that all right- 
minded Argonauts expect when they bring 
back a golden fleece. Even without her it 
was a pretty close fit. On the rear seat was 
the Captain, with the biggest paddle in captiv- 
ity. Sandwiched in between the next two 
thwarts, on the bottom of the canoe, sat Alice- 
Palace and Henny-Penny, pledged not to move 
whatever happened. Trottie and Honey-Bee, 
disagreeing about something, as usual, were 
wedged in beyond, while the Third paddled 
bow. A few strokes took them out of the pool. 
The Cabin disappeared around a sharp bend. 
The quest had begun. 


THE ARGONAUTS 


133 


Sing, 0 Muse, of the perils by sea and land 
endured by that dauntless crew. First came 
“Sunken Log,” a bare two inches under the 
whirling water except at one end, where there 
was a passage if the canoe were jammed into a 
tangle of cranberry vines on the bank and 
swung into the current at just the right instant. 
The Captain said afterward that it was the 
Third’s fault, and the Third was positive that 
the Captain was to blame. Anyway, the Argo 
scraped, and for a perilous instant stuck. In 
another second she would have swung broad- 
side to the swift current and capsized. Only a 
tremendous burst of paddling, aided by loud 
squeals from Alice-Palace and Henny-Penny, 
saved the day. Just in time she slid squeak- 
ingly into safety. 

Followed a long stretch, where the croon- 
ing water ran under star-leaved sweet-gums, 
while the banks were fringed with pitcher- 
plants, cassandra, sweet pepper-bush and car- 
peted with wine-colored pyxie-moss and yellow 
asters. Just beyond the bow of the Argo a 
red squirrel ran down the hanging branches 
and leaped across, clinging with his bent 
forepaws and swinging back and forth over 
the water like a pendulum. Painted terrapin 
scuttled off from sunken snags, and chewinks 
with rust-red sides scuffled among the leaves 


134 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


like little hens. Once the Watchman of the 
Creek, a big blue-gray and white kingfisher, 
flew ahead of the Argo, giving his warning 
rattle. Then came a place where the water was 
swift again and a tree-trunk stretched nearly 
across the stream, leaving a place little more 
than a yard wide through which the canoe must 
pass. It was a wonderful bit of steering. The 
Captain said so himself. The Argonauts at 
once named the place “Passage Perilous” from 
the Morte d’Arte. Then there was the “Port- 
cullis,” where they passed under an overhang- 
ing tree with one long sharp branch hanging 
above the channel ready to scrape off any 
unwary voyager. 

“Just like Scylla,” said Honey, who had been 
dipping into the Odyssey. There did that hero, 
Henny-Penny, endure a woe almost too griev- 
ous to be borne, for from his very head did the 
dire Portcullis snatch a hat of great price with 
a beautiful roley brim, such as an Argonaut 
might be proud to wear. Then did Henny- 
Penny weep aloud for his loss bitter to be borne. 
Nor could the swift Argo stop in the midst of the 
stream. Then it chanced that as the current 
whirled the hat away it caught upon the branch 
of a sunken tree and hung safe and dry above 
the water. Whereupon the Captain cheered 
the hero, Henny-Penny, with winged words and 


THE ARGONAUTS 


135 


the promise to restore the hat to him on the 
homeward voyage, so that his heart was com- 
forted and he ceased from tears. 

Beyond the scene of this happening, which I 
have tried to set forth in Homeric phrase, 
came the “Crooked S’s,” where the Rancocas 
doubled on itself again and again in such sharp 
curves that the canoe bumped from bank to 
bank a dozen times until the maze was passed. 
Farther on was the Speedway, where for a 
hundred yards the stream ran straight and 
swift. The green banks passed like the film 
of a moving picture, and the water swirled in 
ripples and coils of tawny gold under the 
quick paddle strokes. Just as it seemed as 
if the Argo were about to be dashed into a 
thicket of greenbrier the Captain executed a 
right-angle turn much applauded by the crew. 

Mile after mile into unknown depths the 
voyage stretched on. There were no longer 
paths on the banks. Anything, the Band felt, 
might lurk in the dark thickets past which they 
whirled. In fact, once, as they rounded a sud- 
den curve, a lithe, brown, short-legged animal 
flashed into the tangled bushes with a snarl and 
a gleam of white teeth. The Captain said it 
was a mink — but the Band had their own pri- 
vate opinion. Then there was the Dragon. 
Said Dragon was draped across the tops of some 


136 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


sunken bushes by a still part of the stream. To 
be sure, he apparently fled under the water as 
they approached with dreadful swiftness, but 
the Band felt that this might be only a crafty 
plot on his part to catch them unawares. The 
Captain said it was a banded water snake, 
which, although bitey, was not venomous. 
Only the grim timber rattlesnake, the king 
of the forest, and the copperhead were dan- 
gerous in the northern states, he said. The 
Band knew better. Dragons are always ven- 
omous. 

Finally the current became slower and the 
stream wider as it ran through a little marsh 
ringed around with woods. Suddenly in a 
ferny swale just beyond the wet bank Trottie’s 
sharp eyes caught a gleam in the green grass. 

“The Golden Fleece!” he shouted, and at the 
sight the Captain swung the Argo into harbor. 
The crew rushed ashore and fell on their knees 
before a mass of crested orange-gold spires, each 
one formed of scores and scores of tiny fringed 
flowers all set on a central stem. Petals, sepals, 
lips and fringed tongues all were a mass of 
burnished gold. It was a colony of the yellow- 
fringed orchids, so rare that not even the Cap- 
tain had ever seen the flower before. Beyond, 
as far as they could see, the meadow was all 
a-gold. There were so many that each of the 



THE KING OF THE FOREST 















































































'$3 p 5 

























































THE ARGONAUTS 


137 


Band picked a great bunch to bring back to 
Mother, although usually orchids are to be seen 
but not picked, and as they journeyed back a 
host of slender golden wands waved good-by to 
them through the green depths of the marsh. 

For the homeward voyage, Honey-Bee took 
the place of the Third at the bow. With the 
full speed of the current behind it, the good ship 
Argo rushed down stream. There was little 
time to hesitate at any of the hazards. Down 
the Speedway the canoe leaped like a salmon. 
Just in time the Captain remembered at which 
end of the log lay Hidden Passage. With one 
accord the heroes fell flat on their faces and 
whizzed under the Portcullis and leaped over 
Sunken Log without scathe. There, however, 
a couple of withe-wood boughs cut the bow- 
paddler across the face like the slash of a whip. 
He had just opened his mouth for a cry that 
would have been heard clear to the Cabin when 
the Argo came to the Turn where a swirl of swift 
current set into the bare bole of a pitch-pine. 
It was necessary to swing the bow of the canoe 
instantly out of the eddy into the quiet water 
beyond. The Captain backed and held the 
canoe with all his strength for a second against 
the current. 

“Paddle 1” he shouted. “You can cry later 
on.” 


138 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Honey saw the force of this suggestion and 
paddled desperately to get the nose of the canoe 
about in time. It was a sharp bit of work, but 
he did it. 

“Now, you can cry,” said the Captain kindly 
as they swung into the smooth water. 

“No,” said Honey with much dignity. “It’s 
too late now.” 

A little farther on, with a quick flip of his 
paddle the Captain rescued the precious head- 
gear of Henny-Penny. Then came the Needle’s 
Eye — and the canoe rushed down the current 
like a racehorse. The bow shot through safely, 
but the steersman waited a second too long and 
with his paddle cramped was swung against the 
jagged edge of the log A quick writhe saved 
his skin but not his shirt. This was the last 
accident of the voyage and the Argo rounded 
the curve and came to rest in the Pool amid 
paeans of victory from the returning heroes. 

At the Cabin Mother and the Banquet 
awaited them — both unsurpassed. The table, 
a Sheraton found by the Captain in an old, 
old house in the Barrens, was decorated with 
the honey-sweet blossoms of the white alder 
and strewn with gray-green bayberry leaves, 
golden asters, and purple boneset. The first 
course was served in cups of white oak leaves 
pinned together with thorns and filled with ripe, 


THE ARGONAUTS 


139 


sweet blueberries. Then there came a green rus- 
sula salad made of crisp, grayish-green mush- 
rooms served raw, with French dressing, and 
crackers and cheese. There was fresh butter, 
cool and dewy from the refrigerator scooped 
out of a clay bank under the cold waters of 
the creek, and raisin and nut bread. Then 
came a wonderful catfish and eel-fry, the re- 
sults of two hours of fishing in the dark the 
night before by the Captain down by Lower 
Mill. 

For dessert were baskets of New Jersey 
peaches picked that morning from a near-by 
peach orchard. In the middle of the table 
from a copper luster jug bought at another 
old house gleamed the golden trophy of the 
voyage. Each hero of the crew told Mother 
of the adventures of the voyage at length, and 
the feast stretched so far into the afternoon 
that the moon was rising over Violet Hill when 
the Band came home again. 










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MRS. SNAPPER LAYING SIXTY-SIX EGGS 


TURTLE DAY 


The Captain was coming home. You could 
tell that because the members of the Band, 
Brownie the dog, and Puffly the big Angora 
cat, were all running and rolling and tumbling 
down Violet Hill, which led to the gate. He 
had been away for a day and a night on a 
private exploring expedition by himself through 
the southern part of New Jersey. From the 
pockets of his shooting-jacket sprays of sweet 
pink azalea showed, together with bunches of 
the blue bird’s foot violet, with its dark clouded 
center, and wine-red pyxie-moss starred with 
tiny white blossoms. 

It was Trottie who made the first discovery. 

“Ouch!” he remarked earnestly after slip- 
ping his hand into one of the many pockets 
of the shooting-jacket. “There’s something 
crawly there.” 

“It won’t hurt you,” reassured the Captain. 

Trottie tried again and brought out a little 
round turtle with a black back bordered by 
twenty-five irregularly-shaped lozenges of shell. 
Inside of this border were eleven larger sec- 
tions and down the middle of the back were 
141 


142 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


three larger lozenges yet, all made by criss- 
cross lines in the shell. 

“The top of this turtle,” lectured the Cap- 
tain, “is called the ‘carapace’ and the under- 
shell, which looks like a piece of pinky-brown 
soap, is the ‘plastron.’ You see how smooth 
it is. That shows this turtle likes a sandy 
brook; otherwise, the plastron would be 
scratched and cut from crawling over stones. 
The name of the owner of said carapace and 
plastron,” he went on, “is Painted Turtle, and 
you see he is just about as big around as the 
palm of my hand.” 

“Why is it called ‘painted’?” inquired Honey, 
who always wanted to know. 

“Look,” said the Captain, turning the turtle 
over. The under-edge of the shell was beau- 
tifully mottled all the way round in vivid red 
and black. 

“Does he bite?” inquired Alice-Palace anx- 
iously. 

“No,” responded the Captain, pulling out 
the reluctant little head with its beautiful 
black and gold eyes, and showing her the tiny 
black claws on each foot and the red-and- 
black tail tucked away under the shell. 

“No,” said the Captain again, “Painted 
Turtle doesn’t bite, neither does Spotted Tur- 
tle,” and from another pocket he pulled out a 


TURTLE DAY 


143 


turtle of about the same size, only its black 
back was covered with bright yellow spots. 
“Neither does Muhlenburg’s Turtle,” he went 
on, taking out another turtle of about the 
same size, whose carapace was black with 
dim reddish blotches, while on each side of 
its head was a vivid orange patch. The 
Band applauded each new turtle enthusias- 
tically. 

“This one,” said the Captain, “is a rare 
turtle and is named after the man who first 
discovered him.” 

Then he reached around to another pocket 
which was weighed down with something 
heavy. With some difficulty he pulled out 
a large turtle nearly eight inches long, with 
brick-red legs and neck. Its dull brown 
shell was marked with yellow and deeply 
carved into a series of high shields marked 
with fine grooves. The under-shell was yel- 
low and red. 

“This,” said the Captain, “is the wood- 
turtle, sometimes called the ‘sculptured turtle.’ 
When I found him he was close to the nest of 
an English pheasant in a big swamp, and if 
I hadn’t caught him just in time would have 
eaten all her eggs. This turtle is good to eat,” 
went on the Captain, “as I hope to prove to 
you at dinner-time.” 


144 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


Then he reached back and unbuttoned the 
largest pocket of all. 

“Look out,” said he, as he shook to the 
ground a big ugly turtle with a deeply grooved 
back and a long snaky head with a hooked 
beak. This turtle hissed fiercely and did not 
draw its head in as did the others, but opened 
its beak wide and snapped viciously at every- 
thing that came near. 

“This gentle creature,” said the Captain, “is 
Snapping Turtle and the only good thing about 
it is its taste. When cooked most people 
can’t tell it from the diamond-backed terrapin 
except by the cost. This is a true turtle,” he 
continued, “all the others which I have shown 
you are really terrapins. Once when I was a 
boy,” he reminisced, “ninety or a hundred 
years ago, in the early spring my brother and 
I caught a big snapper which had crawled out 
of a pond into a little brook. We had to hoist 
it into a wheelbarrow to get it home and it 
weighed thirty-two pounds. In those days,” 
he went on, “I had a collection of twenty-two 
spotted turtles.” 

There was still one pocket unexplored. It 
was Henny-Penny who put his hand in and 
pulled out a turtle whose shell was covered 
with bright yellow marks, many of them like 
the letter “E.” The minute he came into the 


TURTLE DAY 


145 


light Mr. Turtle drew his head and front-feet 
into his shell and then clamped down a lid 
which was fastened to the upper end of his 
plastron with a hinge of muscle. 

“He looks just like a box,” said Henny- 
Penny, poking the shell cautiously. 

“That’s his name,” said the Captain, “Box 
Turtle — the first inventor of the portable house. 
This one is Mr. Box Turtle because his eyes 
are red. Mrs. B. T. has yellow eyes.” 

“How did you find him?” inquired the Third. 

“Well,” said the Captain, “I met an old 
darky near the swamp where I was hunting 
and we got to talking snakes. He told me 
that he had seen that morning the track of a 
monstrous snake through the long grass. It 
was so heavy, he said, that it made a per- 
fectly round path. I knew what that meant, so 
I went over to the place and followed the track 
and pretty soon, hidden in the grass, I found 
Mr. Box Turtle, who likes to make these paths 
where the grass is highest. He finds lots of 
insects there. Then, too, he is very fond of 
berries and in the blackberry season you will 
find his head and front feet all stained with 
berry-juice. Mr. Box Turtle,” continued the 
Captain, “is half way between the turtles, 
which live in the water, and the tortoises, which 
live entirely on land. He can swim, but he 


146 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


hates to do it, and if he falls into the water 
scrabbles along on the top like a floating buoy. 
Yet he has on his hind-feet traces of webs, so 
he is ranked with the turtles. Probably,” 
lectured the Captain, “the split between the 
turtles and the tortoises begins with the Muh- 
lenburg turtle, which has learned to eat out 
of water, something which other turtles, like 
the spotted and the painted turtles, can’t do. 
Then comes the wood-turtle, which can swim 
perfectly, but prefers to live on land. Beyond 
the box turtle the real tortoises begin. They 
range from the gopher-tortoise, which digs so 
many burrows in the Southern States, up to 
the giant tortoise of the Galapagos Islands. 
One of them is in the New York Zoological 
Gardens and weighs three hundred and ten 
pounds, and is four feet long and over four 
hundred years old. I knew a boy once,” went 
on the Captain, “who used to cut the initials 
‘G. W., 1776’ on every box-turtle that he 
found, so if you come across a turtle with 
those initials, don’t be too sure that you have 
found one of George Washington’s pets.” 

“What are you going to do with this one?” 
inquired Trottie. 

“I thought,” answered the Captain, “that we 
might put him in the garden. He’ll eat worms 
and insects, and a little lettuce once in a while. 


TURTLE DAY 


147 


Then when winter comes on he will go under- 
ground and come back next spring, and if you 
children treat him well he will live here a good 
many years.” 

And that’s how Boxy the Turtle came to live 
in the garden with Warty the Toad. 


» 



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I 


* 



THE RED-EYED VIREO’S NEST 


THE TREE TREASURE HUNT 


The Captain came home one evening with 
a very mysterious look on his face. He at 
once called a meeting of the Band. 

“Comrades,” he said, shutting the door of 
the Den and looking carefully under the sofa 
and up the chimney, “I have just heard that 
there is a treasure hidden not many miles from 
here. All those in favor of a treasure hunt 
to-morrow will kindly make a noisy noise.” 

The vote was probably the finest collection 
of assorted sounds ever heard outside of a 
boiler factory. Right in the middle of it all, 
the door burst open and in rushed Mother, and 
Minnie the cook, and Annie the nurse, while 
at almost the same instant old John the gar- 
dener ran up on the porch with an axe, shout- 
ing, “Hould him! Hould him! I’m cornin’!” 
under the impression that there was a fight on 
with some unusually ferocious robber. 

The noise stopped suddenly and the Captain 
looked quite ashamed, as he explained that it 
was only the Band taking a vote. 

Mother pretended to be very angry. 

149 


150 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“Some day,” she said, “you’ll all be in ter- 
rible danger and you’ll shout and yell and 
scream for help and not one of us will come. 
Will we, John?” 

“Niver a step,” called back John, as he 
clumped disappointedly down the steps, his 
unused axe over his shoulder. 

The Band threw themselves on stern little 
Mother in a wave. 

“You couldn’t not come to your nice littly 
girl,” besought Alice-Palace, while Trottie and 
the Third and Honey and Henny-Penny all 
tried to hug her at once. 

“Well, perhaps not,” relented Mother, “if 
you’ll never make such disgusting noises again 
in the house.” 

The next afternoon found the Band in full 
marching order along old sunken Roberts Road, 
the beginning of so many of their adventures 
among the wild-folk. Each one was armed 
with a bird-sheet on which to check the names 
of all birds seen and heard, for the Captain 
had promised them field-glasses as soon as 
they could identify thirty different kinds of 
birds in a day. The Third and Trottie had 
won theirs, and the others were hard on their 
heels, all except Alice-Palace, who relied 
mostly on her imagination, much to the dis- 
tress of her twin, the literal Henny-Penny. 


THE TREE TREASURE HUNT 


151 


As they marched in single file down the road, 
a slim little hawk with a buff, mottled waist- 
coat skimmed across a pasture from the top 
of a huge willow-tree, hovered for a long 
moment over a patch of withered grass, and 
then darted off shrilling the slogan of his folk : 

“Kiii-km-kin-km r 

“Sparrow-hawk I” shouted the Captain and 
the Third. 

“Sparrow-hawk!” chorused Trottie and 
Honey a second later. 

“Narrow-hawk!” piped Alice. 

“Not narrow-hawk, sparrow-hawk,” ob- 
jected Henny-Penny. 

“No,” said Alice firmly, “it’s a very narrow 
hawk indeed and that’s his name.” 

At Three Corners, where the little old yel- 
low schoolhouse stood, a flock of sleek buff 
birds with crests, a yellow band at the under 
side of their tails and a scowling black band 
above their eyes, flew out of a clump of high- 
bush cranberries, wheeled all together like a 
military company and disappeared down the 
valley. 

“Cedar-birds,” called out the bird experts. 
Around a bend in the road a flock of robins 
flew out of a tree. 

“Apple-tree birds,” remarked Alice-Palace 
decisively, and no argument availed to change 


152 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


her decision. “They flewed out of an apple- 
tree and that’s their name,” she maintained 
firmly. 

Just before the Band reached old Tory 
Bridge, the Captain turned off into a bowl- 
shaped meadow. On three sides the green turf 
sloped down to a long level stretch covered 
with a thin growth of different trees with a 
thicket in their midst through which trickled 
a little stream. Near the fence stood a white- 
oak tree to which some ill-tempered owner had 
fastened a fierce sign which read, “Keep out. 
All trespassers are liable to be shot without 
notice.” The cross owner had been gone many 
a long year, but the sign still stayed. It al- 
ways gave the Band a defightful thrill to read 
it, and made them think of spring-guns and 
man-traps. 

At the edge of the grove the Captain halted 
them all. 

“Comrades,” he said in a whisper. “I have 
heard rumors that there is a clue to this 
Treasure hidden in the sign-tree.” 

It was enough. With one accord the Band 
sprang upon that defenseless tree. Some 
searched among its gnarled roots. Others ex- 
amined the lowest branches. It was Henny- 
Penny, however, who, boosted by Alice-Pal- 
ace, fumbled back of the threatening old sign 


THE TREE TREASURE HUNT 


153 


and drew out a crumpled slip of grimy paper. 
On the top had been laboriously inscribed in 
some red fluid, presumably blood, a skull and 
cross-bones. Underneath in a very bad hand 
was written, “By the roots of the nearest 
black-walnut tree. Captain Kidd.” There 
was a moment’s check. The Third, followed 
by all the others except Henny-Penny, ran to 
a near-by tree with close-knit bark and straight 
twigs. Henny-Penny regarded the tree doubt- 
fully, and then searched the sky line until he 
found a tree which looked almost exactly like 
the other except that the upper twigs were 
twisted and crooked instead of straight. In a 
moment there was a shout and Henny-Penny 
waved over his head a crumpled piece of pa- 
per which said, “Go to the nearest tulip-tree. 
Blackbeard the Pirate.” 

By the time the others had reached the 
place where Henny-Penny had dropped the pa- 
per, he had a good start toward a straight, 
slim tree with square-cut leaves, for he re- 
membered that the Captain had once told the 
Band that the tulip tree was the only one 
in America which had square leaves, By its 
base was another message: “Look under the 
stone that stands between a spice-bush and a 
white-ash.” This was a sticker. The Band had 
forgotten just how to tell spice-bush. They 


154 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


ran sniffing the various near-by bushes like 
a pack of beagles. Finally it was Honey who 
found a bush whose crushed leaf smelled sweet 
and spicy and whose twigs broke as brittle as 
glass. Henny-Penny located the white-ash, 
remembering again the difference between the 
white-ash and the black-walnut. The twigs of 
the white-ash are blunt and point straight to 
the sky like fingers. It was not long before 
the combination was found, and the whole 
Band heaved up a big flat stone which stood 
there while the Third read off another mes- 
sage: “Look in the crotch of a dogwood-tree. 
It will not bite, but you can tell it by its bark.” 

“I know,” said Trottie, “its bark looks like 
the lizard-skin bag that Mother has, all cov- 
ered with little square scales.” 

Sure enough, such a tree was soon found, 
filled with great white flowers, and in the 
crotch was another message, which said: 
“Look in the old red-eyed vireo’s nest which 
hangs on a sour-gum tree.” This halted 
the whole Band. Not one of them remem- 
bered what a sour-gum tree looked like, 
although the Third knew that it was the same 
as the tupelo and also the pepperidge. They 
scattered and searched the grove singly and 
in pairs. It was Alice-Palace that found the 
next clew. She wasted no time in looking for 


THE TREE TREASURE HUNT 


155 


trees sweet or sour. The year before she had 
learned the low-hanging little woven white 
basket which the vireo makes for its nest, and 
she trotted hither and yon searching every 
low-swinging branch with her sharp eyes. 
Finally she came to a great tree with a deep 
corrugated bark whose upper limbs grew out 
at right angles from the trunk. On the tip of 
one of the lowest limbs she saw what she 
sought, a bleached and weather-beaten vireo’s 
nest swinging in the wind. Pulling down the 
limb she found a precious folded paper, which 
contained the last message of all : 

“I am buried. A red-cedar, a black-oak and 
a sassafras tree are equally distant from my 
grave. 

(Signed) “The Treasure.” 

Followed scamperings and scurryings and 
huntings galore. Every one knew the red- 
cedar tree with its dark green foliage. All the 
Band, too, knew the sassafras tree, because 
they were accustomed to nibble its leaves, 
some of which were trefoil and some single- 
lobed, as well as the spicy bark of its twigs and 
the roots of its saplings. Only the Third 
knew the secret of the black-oak. It had 
leaves whose tips were pointed, but so were 
those of the red-oak, scarlet-oak and the pin- 
oak. He located a tree with a black bark not 


156 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


far from a cedar tree. Opening his trusty 
jackknife he whittled through the outer bark. 
The inside bark was a deep saffron-yellow, the 
hall-mark of the black-oak. By this time the 
rest of the children had found a sassafras tree 
and the red-cedar. The sassafras and the 
black-oak stood at the points of the triangle. 
The Third paced off five paces from each tree 
and where the lines came together the whole 
Band commenced to dig, some with jack- 
knives, some with crooked sticks. A foot be- 
low the soft mold some one’s knife clinked 
against metal. Alice-Palace threw herself 
headlong into the hole and scrabbled out with 
the treasure, a great tin box, which held ex- 
actly two pounds of assorted chocolates. 

An hour later the Band, sticky but satisfied, 
started homeward. 

“The trouble about treasures is that they 
don’t last,” sighed Honey. 

“Well,” said the Captain, “there are ten 
trees and shrubs which you will always re- 
member. That’s a treasure that will last.” 







C o in rrt on Mole . 

v5**\*^ 


]3re\*s c r$ Mole. 

I, esse rMole $ ft re 


* 



THREE BUNDIES 




BLINDIE THE MOLE 

It was Henny-Penny who first made the 
acquaintance of Blindie. He was trotting 
down a slope of the lawn, very busy in visiting 
all of the trees and bugs and flowers which he 
had not seen since yesterday. Down by the 
Violet Hill, where the first violets come in the 
spring, he stopped to look at the Perplexing 
Trees which grew on that slope. There were 
four of them and they always bothered him. 
One was a spruce, one was a pine, one was a 
hemlock, and the other was a balsam fir. 
Every time the Band walked past there with 
the Captain they had to pass an examination on 
these trees. So today Henny-Penny was say- 
ing over to himself, “Short needles, hemlock; 
long needles, pine; middle-sized needles all 
round the stem, spruce; middle-sized needles 
flat on one side with nice smell, fir.” Just as he 
said the word “fir” right at his feet there was 
an earthquake. At any rate, where the ground 
was covered with pine needles close to the trees, 
the earth moved and broke and rose up in little 
waves and dropped down again, leaving a long, 
hollow ridge. If that wasn’t an earthquake, 
Henny-Penny didn’t know what it was. 

157 


158 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


At first he was going to run, for he had al- 
ways heard that earthquakes were dangerous. 
As nothing seemed to happen, however, he stuck 
the toe of his stumpy little shoe into the very 
middle of the earthquake. It struck some- 
thing round and fuzzy, and he kicked out upon 
the pine needles a strange little animal covered 
with soft, fine black fur. It had a long, flexible 
snout, but no eyes or ears. Its forepaws were 
broad and flat, with sharp, curved claws and 
white wrinkled palms, and were bowed out so 
that when brought together the backs touched 
each other. The minute this strange animal 
touched the ground it began to swim right 
down through the earth before Henny-Penny’s 
astonished eyes. As it was going out of sight 
he pulled it up just in time. Holding it care- 
fully by the back of the neck, so that it couldn’t 
bite, Henny-Penny started for the house. On 
the way he passed the big lilac bush, by which 
stood the sand box, where he and Alice-Palace, 
his twin, built tremendous forts and laid long 
lines of railways and planned other important 
building and mining operations. A bright idea 
came to him. He would put Blindie, as he had 
already named the little beastie, on the sand 
and let him dig as many tunnels as he pleased, 
for underneath and on all sides was an inch- 
thick plank. He did so, and with one stroke 


BLINDIE THE MOLE 


159 


Mr. Blindie swam out of sight. That evening, 
when the Captain came home, he was met by 
the Band, who all together and at once told him 
of the day’s discovery. 

“Quite so,” remarked the Captain, when they 
at last stopped for breath; “I understand the 
whole thing. Henny-Penny’s caught a Blindie. 
He’s not lost, only you can’t find him. Come 
along and we’ll mine for him in the sand-box.” 

So they went out with a lantern and a spade, 
and after a lot of free-hand digging the Captain 
found Blindie in a tunnel in one corner of the 
box. 

“Fellow citizens,” he began, impressively, 
taking a firm grip on Blindie’s plush-like fur, 
“this fierce and enormous quadruped which I 
hold so bravely in my right hand is known as 
the Mole. He’s called Mole because that’s his 
name.” 

“We’d rather call him Blindie,” interrupted 
Alice-Palace at this point. 

“Quite right,” said the Captain, “that’s a 
better name; but in order that ignorant persons 
may entirely understand you, just add the 
word ‘Mole’ to it and call him ‘Blindie the 
Mole.’ There are three kinds of blindies in our 
part of the United States,” he went on. “One 
is called the star-nosed mole because, instead of 
having a pointed nose like Honey-Bee, or a 


160 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


snub-nose like Henny-Penny, or a very beauti- 
ful nose like the ones Alice-Palace and I have, 
he prefers a nose with a star at the end of it, for 
its snout ends like a flat disk covered with tiny 
points or fingers. The star-nosed mole,” went 
on the Captain, “is only found in wet, swampy 
ground. This blindie here,” he continued, “is 
the common or naked-tailed mole, which has a 
short bare tail. Then there is another rarer 
mole called the hairy -tailed mole, which has a 
hairy tail. Sometimes,” finished the Captain, 
“the shrew, which has a long snout, too, is taken 
for the mole. It is only about half the size and 
doesn’t have flat, spadelike forepaws. When 
Blindie is at home he lives from twelve to fifteen 
inches below the ground, deep enough to escape 
any plow.” 

“But, Fathy,” objected Henny-Penny, “ this 
one was only an inch or so underground when I 
caught him.” 

“He was in one of his hunting tunnels,” ex- 
plained the Captain. “Every mole has a lot 
of shallow runways just under the top of the 
ground. He goes through all of these every day 
and picks up earth-worms and grubs and any 
other insect which he may find there. When 
game gets scarce, he digs new tunnels and he al- 
ways takes great care of them. If you make a 
hole in any of the little ridges which you see 


BLINDIE THE MOLE 


161 


along the lawn and go there the next day, you 
will find that Mr. Mole has mended it. His 
nest is a little round room four or five inches 
across and about a foot underground, and filled 
with fine grass which he has pulled in by the 
roots from below.” 

“Does he go to sleep in the winter like the 
chipmunk and the woodchuck?” inquired 
Trottie. 

“No,” said the Captain, “the mole stays 
awake all winter. When it gets cold he goes 
down deep below the frost and hunts as he 
does in summer through his tunnels, only, of 
course, they are very much deeper.” 

“John the gardener says,” interrupted the 
Third, “that moles do lots of harm and that we 
ought to kill this one.” 

There was a loud wail of protest from Henny- 
Penny and Alice-Palace, and it was some time 
before the Captain could be heard. 

“They do some harm,” he explained, “but 
they do more good, so we won’t kill any blindies 
on this place. They don’t eat roots or plants, 
although sometimes different kinds of mice 
which use their tunnels do and Mr. Mole gets 
the blame. They do make trouble in gardens 
and on lawns by displacing the seeds and roots 
and making long ugly ridges. On the other 
hand, a mole eats its own weight every day 


162 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


in white grubs, earthworms, beetles, larvse, 
spiders, centipedes and other insects, many of 
which do harm to plants. Besides killing off 
the grubs, moles help the gardeners in another 
way. Their tunnels mix the soil and sift the 
earth so that the air and water can get in and, 
in the long run, plants grow a great deal better 
after a mole has been around, although he may 
disturb their roots a good deal at first.” 

“Brownie, John’s fox terrier,” said Honey, 
“smelled of Blindie and we were afraid he was 
going to bite him, but he only squivveled up his 
nose and went away.” 

“Yes,” replied the Captain, “there are not 
many animals that will touch a mole. Their 
fur has a curious smell which dogs and cats 
don’t like, and hardly any of them are ever 
caught either by hawks or owls. Heavy rain- 
storms and floods are about the only things that 
Blindie fears, because then the water may fill 
his tunnels and drown him.” 

“And now, comrades,” concluded the Cap- 
tain, “since you have heard the whole of this 
interesting and instructive lecture, let’s take 
Blindie back home.” 

“But we want him for a pet,” objected all 
the Band. 

“Yes,” said the Captain, ’’but what does 
Blindie want? He ought to have something to 


BLINDIE THE MOLE 


163 


say about this. Do you think it’s fair to take a 
little animal and shut him up in a cage just be- 
cause you want to look at him? Good sports- 
men don’t keep wild things in cages.” 

The next morning a procession might have 
been seen marching down Violet Hill. It was 
made up of the members of the Band with 
Henny-Penny carrying Blindie again. When 
they reached the hunting-tunnel where the 
earthquake had been, each one smoothed his 
soft, plushy fur for the last time and then 
Henny-Penny set him gently down on the out- 
side of one of the ridges. He never even hesi- 
tated. With one plunge of his powerful paws 
he swam down through the pine needles. 
There was a little pattering sound underground 
and Blindie was at home again. 










MR. FLICKER 





A CHRISTMAS ANGEL 


“The nights are too long,” complained 
Henny-Penny as he got up for the fifth time 
the night before Christmas, only to find that 
it was three a. m. 

“How many days before next Christmas?” 
inquired the pessimistic Alice-Palace from her 
crib, feeling that the Day was already far spent. 

At last and at last the sun peeped up over 
the edge of Violet Hill. At the very first 
gleam the Band arose with a whoop. Down 
from the third story trooped the Third and 
Trottie and Honey, while the twins, Henny- 
Penny and Alice-Palace, by a flank movement, 
joined them at the foot of the staircase. Wait- 
ing a moment to form ranks they all burst 
into the Captain’s room with a shout of 
“Merry Christmas” that nearly brought the 
plaster down. Over the fireplace hung a tre- 
mendous gray plaid shawl which a Scotch 
lord had once given to the Captain’s grand- 
father in the days when men wore shawls in- 
stead of overcoats. For two generations it 
had been hung over fireplaces to cover up 
Christmas stockings. Underneath, for each 
165 


166 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


member of the Band, there was a big stocking 
and a little stocking, both of them very lumpy 
and knobby and crammed to bursting with 
different presents. Each member of the Band 
rushed back to bed with the little stocking, 
while the big stocking and the presents too 
large for any stocking were kept until after 
breakfast. 

Immediately sounded loud squeals and other 
assorted noises from the little-ups while the 
grown-ups tried vainly to sleep again before 
the rising-bell. Then came a wonderful Christ- 
mas breakfast, and the story of the first 
Christmas, and the taking down of the rest of 
the stockings and the trying out of all the 
presents, and more squeals, and greetings from 
other grown-ups and little-ups who had flocked 
in to compare presents. So it was after ten 
when the Band finally started out for their 
annual Christmas bird-walk. Every holiday 
they had a bird-walk and kept a list of all the 
birds seen and heard, the which was noted 
down in the “Band Book,” a big leather- 
covered volume in which the Captain in- 
scribed and recorded the doings of the Band 
year by year. 

It was a dark day and the white snow 
crunched under foot in the stinging cold. 
Straight for Fox Valley the Band headed, fol- 


A CHRISTMAS ANGEL 


167 


lowing the little winding fox-path which led 
through the marsh and down between two 
round, green hills and across the brook through 
the beechwoods, and ended at Blacksnake Den. 
As they crunched along in the snow overhead 
through the gray air passed a little flock of 
greenish birds with white wing-bars, which 
dipped up and down as they flew, while down 
through the air came a faint, sweet, canary- 
like note. 

“Goldfinches!” shouted Trottie and the 
Third together. 

“They don’t look very goldy,” objected 
Alice-Palace. 

“You see,” explained the Captain, “they’re 
wearing their winter suits. Mr. Goldfinch has 
put away his best black cap and yellow coat 
with black sleeves because, of course, they 
would wear out if he wore them all the year 
around. He always keeps the two white bars 
on his wings though,” finished the Captain. 

As they marched in single file, suddenly a 
little piece of bark on the side of a white-oak 
tree seemed to move, and before their very 
eyes began to circle the trunk and go up in a 
spiral path. Through their field-glasses they 
saw that it was a little brown and gray bird 
with a long curved beak, and the Captain told 
them that it was the brown-creeper, who al- 


168 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


ways goes up a tree in tiny little hops in a 
spiral and has to fly down. Then the Cap- 
tain told them how for a long while no one 
could ever find the nest of a brown-creeper, un- 
til at last it was found under strips of bark on 
dead trees. 

Down in the marsh the path led past a 
swamp-maple. In the fork of a bare branch 
was a round nest all silver-gray and woven 
out of strips of the pods and floss of the milk- 
weed. Trottie climbed up and brought it 
down for the Band’s collection of nests. When 
looked at closely it seemed to have two stories. 
The Captain poked his finger down through 
the bottom of the first, and there underneath 
was another nest with two eggs, one pale 
bluish-white and the other speckled all over 
with cinnamon-brown. Then the Captain told 
them the story of that nest. It was made by 
Mrs. Goldfinch. After she had laid her first 
egg along had come Mrs. Cowbird, who never 
builds a nest of her own but always puts her 
eggs into other birds’ nests. There they hatch 
first and the little cowbird crowds out or 
starves to death all the other birds in the nest. 
When Mrs. Goldfinch found what had hap- 
pened she told Mr. Goldfinch, and they had 
gone to work and built another nest right over 
the ugly, fatal egg. 


A CHRISTMAS ANGEL 


169 


At the edge of the swamp they heard a loud 
whistle, and suddenly blood-red against the 
white snow flashed out a crested, brilliant 
cardinal-grosbeak. The Captain had them all 
stand still, and then he gave the adventure-call 
of the Band — the loud whistled note of the 
cardinal. For a minute the bird seemed to 
listen, and then suddenly dived into the thicket 
and whistled back even louder and much 
clearer than the Captain could. 

“Oh, the nice, dear cunningsome!” exclaimed 
Alice-Palace as they listened to the bird and 
the Captain calling each other. “I wisht I 
could take him home.” 

“He is happier out in the woods,” said the 
Captain, “than he could be in a cage.” 

All through the beech- woods were little flocks 
of slate-colored snow-birds and bluejays. Just 
before they came to Blacksnake Den they 
heard a curious grunting note, and a gray bird 
with white cheeks and a white breast ran up 
and down a tree ahead of them grunting to 
itself, “Yank, yank, yank.” Suddenly as they 
watched him he stopped and broke out into a 
loud “Quee, quee, quee, quee,” all in one tone. 
The Captain told them that this was the 
spring-song of the white-breasted nuthatch, 
and that he had never heard one sing so early 
in the winter. 


170 


THE OUT-OF-DOORS CLUB 


“I guess,” said Trottie, “that it’s a Christ- 
mas carol for us.” 

On their way back through Fern Valley they 
had a glimpse of a bird with a long beak, black 
cravat, gold-lined wings, and a white patch 
over the tail. It was Mr. Flicker, who had 
decided to winter north instead of south for a 
change. 

The last bird of all came late that night. 
The Band had been tucked away, tired out 
after a happy and exciting day. The Captain 
was dozing in front of the fire over a Christmas 
book. Suddenly from Henny-Penny’s room 
came an S. 0. S. 

“Fathy!” he shouted, “come quick, there’s 
a nangel in my room. I can hear him flappin’ 
around. Hurry!” 

The Captain hurried, for angels rarely ap- 
peared on any of his bird-lists. By the time 
he reached the room and turned on the light 
Henny-Penny had burrowed for safety so deep 
under the bedclothes that it was a wonder 
he ever came to the surface again. At 
first the Captain could see nothing, and told 
Mother, who had come in, that he was afraid 
that the angel must have escaped out of the 
open window. Just then he turned around, 
and there it was perched on the picture-mould- 
ing. It was a little reddish-brown screech-owl 


A CHRISTMAS ANGEL 


171 


with round yellow eyes and tufted ears and a 
funny hooked beak. The Captain tried to 
steal up behind him, but without moving his 
position the little head with the yellow eyes 
turned around and around and followed the 
Captain as if set on a double joint. As the 
Captain came close, suddenly there sounded a 
sharp, rattling, clicking noise. 

“Oo,” bellowed Henny-Penny from beneath 
the bedclothes, “is the nangel breakin’ your 
bones, FathyP” 

However, it was nothing but the little owl 
snapping his beak, the favorite owl trick to 
drive away visitors. With a quick jump the 
Captain caught him. At first Mr. Screech- 
Owl puffed up and clicked his beak and pre- 
tended to be very fierce, but when the Captain 
stroked his fluffy back he snuggled down into 
his hand and seemed to like it. The Captain 
woke up all the Band and showed them the 
last bird of the day, and then with some dif- 
ficulty persuaded the little owl to fly out of 
the window into the cold night. 

Henny-Penny was much relieved to find out 
his mistake. 

“Cuddly little owls are better’n big old nan- 
gels,” he said. 






































